Godless and Faithless 2: Ch 3

In a dark forgotten woodland, goblins rushed through the wrecked gates of the castle. Vix let them all attack ahead of him. He had to ensure no cowardly goblins lagged behind to let others do the hard work of fighting.

Vix worried little though. The goblins had waited a month to storm the final stronghold of the goblin lords.

Finished patrolling the outside of the castle, Vix walked past the gates, stepping over the body of a goblin that had met a dagger to the throat.

Though the goblin lords called the place a castle, it was truly just an abandoned manor. It had a moat but no outer gates and a guard tower in disrepair that likely stored foodstuffs. The state of the tower didn’t stop a goblin loyal to the lords from taking shots at them before he died.

Observing the dusty hallway, Vix found the goblin lords engaged in combat with a group of goblins. The strength of the lords meant only one of them was needed to take on multiple goblins. For this reason, Vix had ordered his goblins never to take them on in single combat.

An order they followed even without his warnings. All goblins feared lords. All except him.

Dashing through the hallways, Vix searched for an unoccupied enemy. He found one after a goblin lord skewered the last of three goblins that had surrounded him. The lord’s ragged, dark cloak was stained from not just their blood, but the blood of enemies long past. He turned to Vix and sneered.

Vix placed his long knife at level with his eyes. Unlike the other goblins’ weapons, his was stained and chipped. As the goblins loyal to him looted the stashes of lords and shamans, they found an assortment of brand-new weapons that the goblins took to like candy.

Vix, however, liked a weapon that showed its age. If it lasted so long then it must have known what it was doing. He hoped that will to survive would carry through to him.

The lord chucked the corpse of the goblin aside dismissively and walked toward Vix, then rushed him, sword thrusting toward Vix like a spear. Vix saw it coming. This wasn’t his first fight with a lord but after this battle, it may be the last.

Vix jumped, grabbing onto a board of wood on the ceiling and shimmied his way along it with nimble limbs. Growling with frustration that Vix had not let himself be impaled like the other goblin, the lord shot daggers at him, and not just with his eyes. The lord’s quick hand shot several daggers, long and thin. The daggers stuck into the wood as each missed Vix who refused to get stabbed by them.

Letting himself fall from the ceiling, he prepared to activate his skill. The lord saw an opening in Vix’s fall and again lunged at him, this time leaping as he did so to intercept Vix’s fall. The lord’s beady black and yellow eyes narrowed at the imminent kill.

Only for his sword to slash empty air. Vix had activated his skill Hop Step to jump on the air. With Vix’s feet back on the ceiling, he pushed off hard to impale the lord with his dagger.

Both fell to the floor. Vix used the lord’s body to break the fall.

The lord survived and crawled away. Unlike the past, he had no other goblins to use as fodder and make his escape.

Vix watched him crawl, curious. The fight ended quickly. He wondered if his opponent was really a lord and not a regular goblin in disguise. Then again, all the lords were like this after a loss. Weak.

The strength of the lords came from their use of skills awakened in them from a long life of struggle. Though tall, many goblins who stood properly and refrained from hunching their backs could meet their height. The strength of a lord was little more than other goblins and their intelligence only passable in Vix’s eyes. With their skills though, they could suppress any other goblin.

Vix used that reliance on skills to his advantage. The goblin lords used their skills in bursts to finish a fight quickly. So, when the attack on their last refuge began, they expended themselves fighting the first wave of goblins. Now all he had to do was clean up the rest.

He left the lord’s body and searched for others to fight, not worrying the lord would escape. There were two goblins peeking out from a corner. Those types waited for moments of weakness to come out. The screams of the lord as the two goblins came from their hiding place to kill him brought a grim smile to Vix’s face.

Once the battle turned their way, the goblins scattered throughout the manor in search of loot. Vix let them, not having the energy to bark orders at them. In their frenzied state, he would have to kill a few to get them in line.

The cause of Vix’s lack of energy came from the now lifeless bodies of two shamans and a lord that had ambushed him in a dead-end of the manor. The shamans fogged his vision with a strange illusion while the lord attacked. Unfortunately for them, they’d forgotten he led an army. Armies have soldiers.

Two of his loyal goblins snuck up behind the shamans and made a smile across their throats with their knives.

Those two goblins now searched the bodies for valuables. Krack had a varied collection of scars on his face. He stopped his search periodically to scratch at them with his sharp fingernails. Only Vix knew that Krack had scarred himself to look more intimidating. It worked.

Mulch, finding nothing interesting, settled with the lord’s cape.