Chapter 22: Chapter Twenty-One: First Stage of World Conquest

            Leo hoped he was cutting an impressive figure as he stood on the foredeck of the galley, wind whipping around his head, staring at their destination—an unassuming stretch of weedy beach, a few miles north of where he had first reached the Blue River when he’d come to this world.

Behind him, the galley drum beat the time—a fast rowing pace they had been relying on, off and on, to make it upriver. It stirred his blood, reminding him that he was heading to a battle, the first of what would likely be many in a long and bloody war, which he had arguably started.

            This round at least.

            The ship reached the shore easily, and men jumped off the side, pulling the boat the rest of the way up onto the sand. Hugh also flung himself off the side of the galley—the other side, into the river. A moment later, he came up and spit water onto the rowers on the river side of the galley, screaming “Dragon attack!” as he did.

The eight galleys that had trailed his own Averia Reborn came to land like imprinted ducklings, their movements almost identical but for their sad lack of an idjit dragon mascot.

Leo climbed down from the foredeck and then down onto the beach, Lily following. Each was now dressed as a warrior befitting their level, and more besides.

Leo had gotten a full complement of magical gear, which on him was a lot, thanks to his five magics. His old magical leather armor was joined by a glimmering longsword—made with tier-two magical components and stronger than his lost sword. Leo spent essence to see his sword’s properties more as a matter of his usual training regime, rather than out of any desire to see the irritating messages again per se.

Lesser Light blade. Lesser item. Light magic. +2-4 Light damage (weapon 3-12 damage.) Provides light.

So you just went and got yourself a bigger version of your previous sword, huh? Compensate much? This space will update if you’re such an idiot you need more description than what’s above.

 

A thin, metal shield strengthened by Metal magic, along with golden gems set in the front and a tree symbol etched into it, upstaged the armor and sword. His straight combat gear was complemented by two leather bracers, stitched with silver and a single small tan crystal for one, and a small green crystal in the other. Each added to his Strength, one as a Body magic item, and the other from Wyld. He was now stronger than he had been at the peak of his MMA career. His final item was a magical silver necklace with a gray crystal in it that reduced the cost for using his telekinesis.

Lily had a bow made from a ‘shadow shade’ tree and enchanted for speed and accuracy with a sky-blue crystal of air magic, as well as a pink crystal ring that produced a mild protective field and green robes that added to essence regeneration. Her illusionary overlay, however, made it all seem rich and regal and elegant.

Val Belmoria, Ola and George’s daughter, followed them down onto the beach. An ash bow with a single sky-blue crystal in the top was in her hands, and she wore leather armor and a quiver of arrows of multiple different types. After some back and forth, Leo had paid to equip her. The Belmoria family had a family line Perk that gave them bonus abilities and affinity for Air magic, and Val had a personal perk that added considerably to her Perception stat. Leo had decided, since they were rescuing her brother, that he would sponsor her to make some levels—secretly hoping that she would also become a warrior for the village. He could use everyone he could get.

Hugh exploded out of the river and waded up onto the shore, the water running from his shiny bronze scales. His own two items, leather bracers that matched Leo’s, gleamed on his legs. His strength was well into the supernatural by now, just shy of thirty.

“Captain Cavendil,” Leo called, and Meryl tromped up to him. “Please prepare your troops for a march once I return, and please make a fortified camp here in case we’re attacked.”

“As you say, my lord, but where are you going?”

“I’m going to take Hugh, Lily, and Val to scout the area—I want to personally figure out what we’re up against.”

“I have scouts,” Meryl said, staring at him with her mismatched eyes, one brown and the other glowing blue. “Trained scouts.”

“I understand, but we have considerably more levels than any of your people. If there’s anything in the forest we should be aware of, I think we’ll be better able to handle it. I’d rather not lose soldiers if we don’t need to.”

Captain Meryl reluctantly nodded. “You’re the boss.”

            She strode away, shouting orders. Some men ran up out of the riverbank with axes and began cutting down trees, and others started unfolding tents and bedrolls. Two started building a fire while others carried an iron pot over.

            Leo had seen quite a few documentaries where the modern militaries were far more efficient, but he was comfortable in the belief that Captain Meryl was competent and had her men well in hand.

“You’re also a sucker,” Hugh said. “Let the little guys do some work.”

            “We’ll likely need them. Besides, weren’t you complaining to me back in town about not having enough experience?”

            Hugh cocked his head slightly at Leo. “A good point.”

            One of the other reasons Leo had wanted to start without Meryl’s people was that he wasn’t sure yet if they could be relied upon, whereas he knew his team of three was extremely reliable. He would be better able to judge Cavendil’s Coterie in the days to come.

Leo explained his plan to scout the enemy’s base and then led the way down the timeworn marble cobblestone road north along the river. The forest was thick next to them, the canopy practically a roof over a scary building—not at all the idyllic portion of the forest Leo had arrived in.

“How far does this road go?” Leo asked. “I mean, wasn’t the river used for transport of goods? Why build this giant road next to the whole thing? Just showing off?”

Lily answered, her voice bright. “During the height of the Kingdom, they built the road to connect the numerous small farming communities along the river for the fifty or so miles north of Calasti—they called them the ‘Orchard communities,’ since most relied on fruit trees because of the node, rather than normal grain farms.”

“Huh,” Hugh said, crossing his eyes. “So fascinating. So riveting, even.”

“You could’ve just let us talk and harassed a squirrel or something,” Lily said. “Leo might need to know this someday.”

Leo, Lily, and Hugh continued to banter back and forth as they walked. They were an estimated four miles south of the fort, so Leo figured they had a bit of time.

A series of howls from within the forest warned them that something was coming.

            “Down the riverbank!” Leo yelled.

            Everyone jumped off the road and onto the decline down to the river. Leo crouched, hiding behind to a scraggly bush, watching, and Lily and Hugh peeked their eyes around the side.

            Three giant wolves rushed from the undergrowth, full speed. Ghost wolves, Leo thought, his excitement increasing as he recognized one. Mystical wolf buddy!

They were being chased by six goblins riding creatures halfway between a mastiff and a wolf. Leo analyzed them to gather any information before a potential fight.

 

Adult Warg
Level 3	Entropy	Health: 13	Stamina: 12	Essence: N/A
Physical Attacks: Bite: Damage 1-6, bonebreaker effect (Toughness check +4) Claw: Damage 1-3 Magical Attacks: N/A			Defenses: Disease: Immune
Special Abilities: Predator (+10% critical chance, +.5 critical modifier)
Turns out there is such a thing as a bad doggo. These creatures are giant mastiffs released into a swamp filled with entropic energy thousands of years ago. Now, they are twisted creatures that only bond with beings of cruelty. They have an interesting evolutionary adaptation, however. The entropic death magic they gather as they grow kills everything else that tries to inhabit their bodies, making them immune to all disease. They also keep gathering Entropy magic, which lets them grow more powerful with age, becoming Elder wargs and then Barghests, even though they can’t level in the traditional sense.   Of special note: Natural enemies of a lot of creatures, including ghost wolves, on whose flesh they love to dine.

 

            “Warg riders!” Lily said, fierce but low. Leo was already standing, withdrawing his sword. No one hurts Mystical Wolf Buddy!

            One of the goblins nocked an arrow to a bone short bow, pulled, and released. The rearmost ghost wolf let out a yip as the arrow buried itself to the fletching in the haunch of the wolf just as its leg was coming down. The ghost wolf immediately lost balance and rolled across the cobblestone road.

            Leo saw another goblin drawing an arrow back to its ear, and he focused his magic—he’d been practicing non-stop, and the essence flowed easily through him.

            Loose cobblestones flew from the ground under Leo’s direction, slamming into the goblin’s chest just as he released his arrow. The goblin’s shot went wild and it was knocked, squealing, off its warg. It landed with a crunch, its arm flopping about horribly as it rolled up next to the wolf it had injured, screaming.

            The injured wolf reached out and ended the goblin’s cries with a single, fierce bite.

Allied ghost wolf kills novice goblin warg rider. 1 experience gained (rounded up from .28 experience). You are reading story Elf Empire at novel35.com

 

            Lily clambered over the side of the riverbank and healed the ghost wolf; Hugh simply charged, roaring; and Val raised up and fired an arrow off, hitting a warg in its chest.

            Hugh ran for one of the wargs. It cut to the right, and its buddy to the left. But Hugh was playing freight train again—he leapt into the path of the warg that had cut to the right, limbs and claws all extended midair like a kitten in full attack mode. The warg tried to turn at the last moment but slammed into Hugh with a resounding crack. Hugh managed to hook the rider off the saddle and bite the warg before all three hit the ground, although the warg might have broken his neck in the first crash as his trip to the ground seemed boneless.

            We’ll need to work on him not giving up the entire fight for one good hit, Leo thought as he jumped to the side of his own charging warg at the very last moment, feeling the breeze from the warg’s teeth and the goblin’s sword as they passed within inches of him. The two went off the riverbank side with a howl from the warg and a near-comical scream from the goblin, but it was barely a drop and Leo knew they’d be back in a minute or two. He let the momentum of his dodge carry him to a warg and rider charging at Val. Before the warg could bite her, Leo stabbed it in its shoulder, and the beast yipped and moved to the side.

Val used her brief moment of safety to shoot the goblin, which dropped its sword and grabbed at the arm pinned to its side.

The two ghost wolves charged back in, distracting two wargs and their riders.

Lily, however, came under attack from the last warg, the one who had gone around Hugh before Hugh had gone ‘fire-and-forget’ on the other one. She held her arm up to protect her face and then screamed as the warg bit down on it, multiple cracks telling Leo she had failed her Toughness check against its bonebreaker ability.

Did that thing make its intelligence check, or did she not use her harmless ability?

Lily grabbed her dagger from her belt with her other hand. She stabbed it into the warg’s eye even as she screamed, but the goblin rider managed to flay the side of her head open with a sword slash.

Leo’s stomach fell to his boots as the warg and Lily separated, blood pouring from the ruined eye-socket and massive scalp wound respectively. The mangled remains of Lily’s arm were also horrifying as she slowly fell to the ground. The blood pouring from her arm and head told Leo he had seconds at best to save her.

As the warg rubbed its face over the ground, pawing at its injured eye socket, Leo brought his glowing sword around and stabbed the warg through its neck. He caught the goblin’s sword thrust on his shield and then slamming the side of it into the goblin’s face with a horrific crunch.

He reached out, touched Lily, and used his own ‘Regeneration, Rank I,’ pushing essence in Body form into Lily. The head wound started to heal, and Lily came back to herself enough to crawl into a bush as Leo turned back to the fray—she would heal fully, given about a minute. Lily didn’t have much health—either she was dead, or one regeneration would do the trick.

One of the ghost wolves was down, multiple slash and bite wounds across its body. Hugh had regained his footing and ended the wounded goblin’s life, and the remaining two ghost wolves had teamed up and ripped apart another warg and rider. Val was rapid-firing arrows at targets mere feet from her.

Leo saw the warg and rider that had gone over the riverbank edge rushing up behind Val and reached out with his essence, grabbing paving stones again.

The warg caught them in the face as it came over the lip, its cross-eyed look of surprise almost as comical as its rider’s previous scream. Then Leo was there, stabbing it just behind its ribs. It yipped and pulled back, dropping below the edge again.

“I have the high ground,” Leo muttered, relying on quips and wordplay as always to distract him from dangerous or stressful situations.

The warg turned and started racing away.

Can’t have that, Leo thought. I need the element of surprise in the upcoming battle.

“Val, behind you, finish it off!”

Val turned, her eyes wide and fearful, but then she saw that Leo meant a fleeing enemy. She nocked, drew, aimed, and released. A burst of air around her bow showed its magic.

The goblin pitched forward, the arrow completely through its torso, and then slipped from the warg, hitting the ground and rolling with a limp finality. The warg continued its run.

When Leo looked back, the fight was over. Hugh had reentered, and nothing could stand against him. His armor was so high that only a critical hit—a strike to eye, mouth, underarm, something like that—could inflict any damage at all.

            Six Level One goblins and six Level Three wargs had fallen—it netted Leo, after breaking it out amongst allies, another eighteen experience. Barely more than one per creature defeated.

            “Why is my experience gain so low?” Leo asked.

            “Those creatures were way below your level and shared with too many people,” Lily said, coming up behind him. Her robe looked like someone had exploded next to her, and her hair was a no longer silver, but a crimson mess. But she, herself, looked whole again.

            “How does it work, exactly?” Leo asked.

            Lily picked a piece of flesh—her own flesh—off her robe and flicked it into the undergrowth with a shudder as she continued. “It about halves the experience for every level below you an enemy is, divided by number of participants. You need to defeat higher-level creatures and people in order to advance, or kill a lot of weak people. At least mostly. A few things can directly infuse magic into you, increasing your level, but they’re very rare.”

            “Are you all right, by the way?” Leo asked, gently touching the side of Lily’s head where she’d been cut.

            Lily winced, despite not being wounded anymore. “That was… rough. I worry that the pain and fear of our mission will deaden me to happiness and joy, out of the necessity of not feeling anymore.”

            Leo nodded.

            Then Lily shimmered, and even her clothing looked brand new and undamaged, and she smelled of rosewater and not blood.

            Leo chuckled. “That’s cool, but please don’t hide anything serious from me, okay?”

            Lily reached out and touched Leo’s hand, staring into his eyes. “I won’t. Thank you, though, for saving me. I would’ve been dead mere moments later. I got the dreaded ‘death imminent’ notification.”

            Leo was torn between pride at the fact that he had saved her and the knowledge of how close one of his two best friends in this world had come to death. “How come your harmless power didn’t work?”

            “Incredibly bad luck, since the warg should have been affected in almost all scenarios. Let’s not speak of it further, however,” Lily said, the muscles around her eyes and mouth tightening. She flicked her silver hair back. “It lessens me to worry over what must be paid to bring our kingdom back again. Any price shall be paid, any burden will be borne. It is beneath a noble of my stature to worry about the costs that must be paid to save the whole.”

            Before Leo could respond to that declaration, his wolf buddy walked up. Hugh bared his teeth.

            “Whoa, dragon,” Leo said, laughing. “This is Mystical Wolf Buddy. We spooned one cold night. You can’t attack someone you spooned with, those’re the rules.”

            “Ha ha, so funny,” Hugh said. “But ghost wolves are bad business. All the long speakers said so. It’s known, in bone and scale.”

            “Once, maybe.” Leo reached out and rubbed the fur of his buddy, who leaned into it.

            The other ghost wolf, admittedly, was hanging back and had its teeth slightly bared. After a moment, it stopped, leaned down, and sniffed its fallen companion.

            Then it straightened, raised its head, and let out a mournful howl that reverberated throughout the forest and across the water. A few birds took to the sky with squawks, and Leo shivered at the sound, a plaintive wail of loss.

            Mysterious Wolf Buddy joined in the howl.

            After a moment, further howls rose from deeper in the forest. A chorus of loss seemed to fill the world for a moment before everything went eerily silent.

            “Well,” Leo said, awkwardly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

            “Why not bond with it now?” Lily asked. “You took the ability.”

            Of course, Leo thought. Still not a hundred percent used to magic. I haven’t really been thinking about my powers as I should be. Abilities, whatever.

            Leo reached out with his magic, and it wrapped around Mystical Wolf Buddy. But Leo felt a rejection, and the magic dissipated.

            Mystic Wolf Buddy gently reached out and took Leo’s sleeve in its mouth. Then it tugged him toward the forest. It let go of his sleeve and headed off in the direction it had been tugging Leo.

When it looked back over its shoulder at Leo, he began to follow the wolf into the forest.

            “This is a terrible idea,” Hugh said as he followed. “I mean, aside from the whole it’s a ghost wolf thing. You’re supposed to be scouting, by Merdrek’s Eye.”

            “They’ll wait for a brief detour,” Leo said.

            Lily stared after the wolf. “I… I don’t think it’s a bad idea, Hugh. I think it’s the first sign of the allies of the elves returning now that we have a worthy ruler again. This is a great thing, as if the forest itself were supporting Leo’s coronation as king.”

            Leo winced. “I hate that title. For a lot of reasons.”

            “I hate your new title as well,” Hugh said, grinning at Leo. “I vote we rescind it.”

            Leo was half-tempted.

            “You hate it for the same reason your analyze ability insults you,” Lily said to Leo. “All the other reasons are secondary.”

            “Some reasons aren’t secondary. You must admit that calling the leader of a band of a thousand settlers a ‘king’ is ridiculous.”

            “Completely ridiculous,” Hugh agreed. “It’s almost bird logic.”

            Leo pondered. I feel like I don’t understand a lot about dragon culture. They think cats are treacherous and villains, and birds are silly… but why? Where did it even come from?

            Lily’s mouth tugged up on one side, a reluctant smile as she responded. “Well, perhaps. But he did receive the title from the old king. It’s also weird to not use it.”

            Val came up, an arrow still nocked on her bow, although it wasn’t drawn. “The old king is alive? Not a ghost? And gave Leo the title? I always wondered why you hadn’t taken the title, Lady Willowynd, but that would explain it.”

            “His magical specter, which inherited a fraction of his essence when he died, passed the vault of kings to Leo and declared him his successor,” Lily said. “And Leo is of the Stardew line. A bastard, but the magic held. So he is doubly entitled to the sobriquet. But I suppose we won’t make a deal out of it.”

            “He did say he was of the Stardew line… I wasn’t sure I believed.”

            Before Leo could respond to that, the ghost wolf ahead gave a slight bark, and the four of them stopped talking and picked up the pace, heading after the wolves.

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