Chapter 1: Mistakes Were Made

Dobengof was well known as a lovely city in the Jurgavian mountains, a centre of trade for many of the surrounding kingdoms with its cobblestone markets known to be home to goods from across the greater continent of Ursh. The landscape around was wild and rugged, having made the city a refuge for travellers attempting to cross the mighty mountain range. Dobengof had within its walls large temples to all of the gods considered among Eleven High Gods, as well at least a shrine to most other gods you could name, a famous library of the mages’ guild, a number of beautiful public parks, and restaurants serving food from across Ursh.

Emphasis on the past tense, however. Well, one could probably still say similar things about the eastern half of the old city. It was still mostly intact.

The western side of the city, however… 

Well, if the fire brigades were successful a few districts might still be salvageable. Between the craters and boulders now littering the city. And the one rather large crater that had destroyed two temples and a market square.

On the edge of that large crater were several figures. Most were humans, elves, and dwarves, the ones at the front of the group clearly well to do merchants. Across from them stood two adventurers, both redheads, though hair colour and green skin tones were about all they shared. The smaller one was a goblin, tall for her species but small compared to most races, yelling angrily back at the merchants, while the taller and more muscular one looked orcish and kept quieter despite glaring at the merchants.

“We’re not paying you after what you did to the city!” a rotund human merchant yelled, his eye twitching. “You destroyed the temple of Zorak!”

The goblin bared her teeth. “There’s still, like, eight temples standing! The giants threatened to raze the city to the bedrock! I’d say I protected the city plenty!”

“Do you have no respect for the gods?” an elven merchant asked her arms waving at the half ruined temple beside them.

“That one was mostly on the giants, but, also, I’m a goblin, so… no,” the sorceress replied with a shrug.

“How much of the town guard is still fighting fit?” the orcish woman asked.

“Barely a quarter!” a dwarf shouted. “We’re in tatters thanks to your reckless tactics!”

“If you’d told me the head of the giants was a sorcerer himself I would have played it safer,” the goblin girl hissed. “Anyway, a good…65% of the city is still standing, so—”

“65%? Barely more than half of it is intact and the fires are still burning!” the human merchant shouted.

“It’s not really my fault you folks didn’t properly invest in your fire brigades,” the goblin grumbled.

“Our buckets wouldn’t be stretched so thin if you hadn’t been tossing fireballs everywhere!” the elven woman hissed.

“I was fighting ice giants for you. I had to use fire!” the goblin countered.

“The treasury is safe in the city hall, right?” the orcish woman asked.

“Yes?” the dwarf replied, a bit confused by the question. 

“Ok, so, listen,” the goblin said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Since you say half of the city is standing, give us half of our pay, and we’ll walk away everyone still friends. How does that sound?”

“You did more damage to the city than the giants did! Not a chance!” the human merchant shouted.

The goblin let out a long sigh, before waving her hand at the angry mob of local merchants and muttering ‘holvotus’. There was a flash of blue, and the shouting stopped, the various merchants frozen in place. The goblin then hopped down beside her orcish friend, dusting her clothes off for a moment.

“The town hall was that way, right Gragya?” she asked.

The orcish woman nodded, prompting the goblin sorceress to begin marching off. Her taller partner followed after her, less pep in the orcish woman’s step. The small goblin grumbled about how ungrateful some people were as they made their way across the half ruined town. When they reached the town hall, they found most of the remaining city guards out front.

The armour-clad men pointed their polearms at the pair as they arrived.

“Halt!” a man in better armour than the others shouted.

“Woah, hey. Hey,” the goblin said, her hands raised in a placating manner. “We’re just here to pick up our pay and then leave.”

“I’m under strict orders from the head of the Merchants Guild himself not to let you anywhere near the treasury,” the guard shouted.

“Don’t worry about that. I smoothed things over and it’s all good now,” the goblin woman said, wearing a large smile.

“If you had he’d be here,” the guard replied. “You’re not getting past us, Miss Goblin.”

“Miss Goblin?” she said, her eye twitching slightly as her voice strained. “Miss Goblin? I saved your city and you can’t even be bothered to use my name?”

The guard blinked. “I wasn’t ever told it.”

“You weren’t—” the goblin woman started, her mouth stretching into a shark-like grin. “Well, then. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the greatest sorceress Goblin-kind has ever produced. I’m the mistress of flames. I’m the epitome of red mages. I’m Illyxa!”

The last line was emphasized with her producing a fireball in either hand as she grinned from ear to ear.

“W-wait. Illyxa the Living Inferno?” a guard whispered.

“D-didn’t she destroy the Elven city of Luareth for the fun of it?” another added, his knees shaking.

“Stand your ground, men!” the head guard shouted.

“And I’m her cousin, Gragya. The first half-goblin to triumph in the Grand Tournament of the Orcheim Coliseum,” the taller woman said, leaning forward. “You know, the barefisted tournament with stone giants?”

Several guards shrieked, dropping their weapons and scattering as the others backed towards the front entrance of the hall. Illyxa rolled her eyes and lobbed one of her fireballs at a wall a dozen paces away from them, blasting a hole in the building.

“You chumps aren’t really worth my time,” she said, strolling over to the hole she’d made. “Stay put and I won’t have to hurt any of you.”

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“I dunno, I think I could use the cool down after fighting those ice giants,” Gragya said, rolling her shoulders.

“Eh, alright. But remember you’ve got to carry our pay!” Illyxa shouted as she headed into the building.

Gragya cracked her knuckles and smiled. One of the guards fainted before she could even charge. The rest really weren’t much more of a challenge.

---

Illyxa let out a groan as she went through their ledgers. After paying off the damages they owed to the fighters’ guild, and the mages’ guild, the registered taverns’ association, and the temple of Glorz, buying a refill of ingredients for some of her fancier spells, and paying off Gragya’s drinks tab (also owed to the registered taverns’ association) they had barely any gold left from the Dobengof treasury.

“You need to stop drinking and eating so much,” Illyxa muttered, as she looked up to see her younger cousin downing another pint of mead.

“Come on. Do you know how much it takes me to even get a little buzzed with my metabolism? Plus—plus, I need the fuel for all the fighting we do, though,” Gragya replied, putting her now empty flask down. “Plus, the only reason your food tab is smaller is because you’re so much smaller.”

“We cleared out the entire treasury of a—fine. If you have to eat so much, then get into fewer bar fights,” Illyxa replied, opening up the small bag of what remained. “We barely got to keep any gems…”

She pulled out one of the larger diamonds, holding it in the candle light to let it refract the various light sources and distract herself with the dance of colours. It helped her mood a little, at least. She’d never understand why the ‘civilized’ races prized gems for the prices given to them so much more than the beauty of how they shimmered.

“Well, there is one other expense you can cut back on,” Illyxa said, glancing over at her younger cousin and sliding the diamond back in her purse.

“Hm?” Gragya replied, lowering her tankard. She looked honestly clueless.

“Stop hiring the expensive companion girls every time!” waving an arm at her.

“I—but the lower priced women usually have terrible bosses that are keeping most of their money. I want to support independent artists,” Gragya mumbled, blushing a little and pushing her fingers together shyly.

“If the other girls are being treated so badly, then they need your money more,” Illyxa replied with a shrug.

Gragya opened her mouth, seeming ready to argue, but drew a blank and went quiet. After nursing her mead a bit longer, she muttered an ‘I guess you’re right’ as she so often did when she and Illyxa had debates. 

---

Illyxa had enjoyed her evening after their meal. She had a full stomach and some peace and quiet to read over her various ‘recently liberated’ tomes of ancient magic. She was getting to a spicy bit of knowledge about necromancy (that she wouldn’t practice, because corpses smell terrible, but seemed potentially useful to know when against the undead) when her window slammed open, letting in the cold night air. 

Jumping to her feet, she was met with Gragya scrambling in, a slightly strained smile on her face, none of her armour on her body, and a mildly frazzled human woman in her arms.

“Hey… so, you know that thing you asked me to do?” the half-orc woman asked.

“Which—” Illyxa started to say, before yelling from the street level interrupted her.

“Where did she go now!?” a male voice shouted, as Gragya and her ‘friend’ ducked down to hide below the window.

“I’m not sure, boss!” another man shouted.

“You got into a fight with her… employers,” Illyxa grumbled.

“They wanted to shave a bit off the top of the tip I was giving. I pointed out that was unethical and then one thing led to another and now they mildly want to kill me,” Gragya replied with a forced grin.

“My hero!” the human woman added, leaning in to kiss her.

Gragya returned the kiss for longer than Illyxa felt was necessary, especially given the current situation, before continuing her explanation. “Anyway, I thought you might want to join the fun?”

“Fun?” the goblin girl asked.

There was more shouting outside, before Gragya nodded. “Their main hideout is on the north end of town, and they seemed like they were pretty rich, based on what the bath house was like.”

“Ah. Now you’re speaking my language,” Illyxa said. “Maybe a little fight with a crime family or two would be good for our accounts.”

---

Two cloaked figures emerged from the woods outside of the town, moving with grace beyond that of regular humans.

“You’re sure about your sources? The Inferno should be in this town?” the male figure asked.

“Either she’s here or she was here recently,” the female figure replied. “She was seen travelling up this road and—”

Both figures were illuminated by a large fireball exploding within the town, though their green cloaks and eyes looked yellow in the orange-red light.

“I suppose that likely confirms it,” the man said, his voice flat.

“You’re quite certain you want to follow this path? There are other options?” the woman replied.

“Other options will take too long,” the man said, stress slipping into his voice. “I’m on borrowed time, thanks to that dragon’s curse.”

“But still… the Inferno?” the woman asked as the man began to walk towards the town.

The man said nothing further, and the woman was left hurrying after him. Despite hurrying down a hill in the dark, one would be forgiven for mistaking her movements for gliding, they were so graceful. The effect of her perfect grace was somewhat lessened by the way she jumped at each further explosion that rocked the town.

She quietly whispered a prayer as they entered the town proper, some of the residents fleeing in the opposite direction while others hunted for buckets to battle the growing fires.

The idea that they were looking for the source of this chaos sent a shiver down the cloaked woman’s spine.

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