A Tyrant, Sort Of

The boss room’s exit provided an expedited path back to the surface. A short trip later, Sable and Aylin emerged into bright sunlight. She preened under the open air, having not realized how stuffy those cramped dungeon hallways were until she had regained her freedom.

And yes—she’d gotten bigger, thanks to her levels. Once again, she’d put on a few inches in height, and several times that lengthwise. It wasn’t going to be long before she was a towering beast, wasn’t it?

That, too, she preened under. Yes, her diminutive stature was far from ideal. Her form should be mighty enough to crush mountains underfoot. Even the trees towered over her, as things stood. Another reason among a dozen that she needed to focus on leveling.

But not as highest priority.

She had big-picture stuff to worry about. Their romp through the dungeon had been enjoyable, and sated Sable’s curiosity as to the average strength of ‘low level mobs’, but now she needed to get a move on.

Because there was a big, scary world out there, and a decent portion of it wanted her dead.

Or, the idea of her. A species so hated—and feared—it had been hunted to extinction. She didn’t have time to dawdle. Though word of her would be constrained to these remote goblin tribes for now, that wouldn’t last forever. She needed to secure a foothold sooner than later. And while balancing the duties of expanding her territory, she needed to be adding to the hoard and working toward higher levels.

The idea excited her, strangely. Though the reality of her death—the loss of everyone she’d once known—still lurked in her psyche, her thoughts shying from it, she was coming to terms with her new existence. As far as afterlives went, this one wasn’t so bad.

So far, at least. That could change on a dime if she mishandled things.

So. Getting to the big picture. She’d taken in some of the smaller aspects of this world, and while not remotely knowledgeable, it was time to start stumbling her way through the more important tasks.

There was plenty of time left in the day. She would drop off the tiny haul they’d procured from raiding the dungeon, then depart.

It was time to meet the northern goblin tribes. Maybe she wasn’t as powerful as she’d prefer, but she’d gained two levels, and the goal wasn’t to get into a fight, besides. She only had to intimidate them into submission. That could happen at her current strength, if she played her cards right.

Scooping Aylin up, she was off.

***

Earlier, Sable had been worried about not being able to find her way back to her hoard, so she had kept careful mental notes on landmarks. But something strange had happened the further she flew away from Lake Plateglass. Her hoard had become a beacon in her head. A faint one, but Sable could feel it tugging at her, providing a guide. So, getting lost wouldn’t ever be much of a danger; her hoard pointed the way home.

After taking a short stop to drop the items they’d collected off, she flew north. As promised, her newly acquired [Soar] ability turned her into a white streak. Even thousands of feet up, with the trees barely ants beneath her, the terrain passed quickly. Just how fast was she going? Hundreds of miles an hour? What was the sound barrier, again? She wasn’t going that fast, at least, unless magic was fudging the details. Which, she supposed, was more than possible.

As she traveled north, the terrain shifted. The thick, vibrant forest melted to a more arid climate. The environment took on a red tint, and it happened surprisingly quick—over the course of an hour, thanks to her staggering speed. [Soar] would certainly come in handy, since managing the various clans she intended to conquer would include plenty of travel. With luck, even, her speed would grow further with her advancement through the levels. It only made sense that it would. Surely one of her stats was tied to it.

She slowed as landmarks started to appear, indicating she’d arrived to the general location. Having studied the maps they’d stolen from Aylin’s clan, she had a rough of idea what to look for, though turning the crude markings—not nearly the quality of modern-day Earth maps—into physical landmarks was difficult. Cruising at a more reasonable speed, and lowering her altitude, she sought out her target.

She would have to be careful. Though she’d grown in power by shrugging her initial bindings—her hoard and notoriety debuffs—she didn’t know if she was strictly safe, either. The northern clans were, according to Aylin, larger, more organized, and generally stronger than what Sable had dealt with so far.

The Red Plains were a dangerous place to live, unlike the hospitable starting zone Sable had found herself in. It was possible one of the clans had a team of higher-level combatants that could pose a real threat to her. Probably did, in fact, considering she was only level three. Though maybe not, too? The fact it was an unknown was the biggest problem.

Locating the city didn’t take long, not at the speed Sable could fly.

Except … looking down on the cramped goblin civilization … she knew immediately that something was wrong.

The city of Gadenrock—and it was that, a city, with streets and two or three story buildings, not a village, like Aylin’s clan—was too quiet. Sedate. As Sable neared, her confusion deepened. A city like this ought to have a steady stream of people milling about, wagons, beasts of burden, the other many moving parts to a packed civilization of thousands of people. The surrounding farm-land, sprawling out and away from the walled urban center, also seemed abandoned.

There was a gloom, too, about the place. Something that set Sable’s nerves on edge, a quiet instinct of hers itching. It reminded her, in a way, of the Ruins of Nefar, where she’d picked up Granite. Seeing how the Ruins were some sort of corrupted, fallen civilization, that didn’t bode well.

Closing the gap, and arriving near enough to Gadenrock to make out the details, Sable’s suspicions were confirmed.

The city was dead.

Nothing moved. The bustling civilization, previous home to thousands, was silent and lifeless. Carts laid abandoned. Market stalls were tipped over, produce and merchandise spilled across the ground, almost as if there’d been a panic before whatever unknown catastrophe had hit. But where were the corpses? It was as if the people inhabiting this place had vanished. And recently. Produce lay unrotting on the streets from the tipped over stalls.

Hovering in the air, Sable stared down with growing unease. [What happened here?]

Aylin, gripped in her claw, looked down at the city, then replied—having to shout over the beating of Sable’s wings—“What happened? What do you mean?”

Right. Of course the goblin girl didn’t have the discerning predator eyes that Sable herself did. Nearly a thousand feet in the air, she couldn’t make out the details to see that it had been abandoned. All she saw was the city.

But did Sable want to descend? Something was wrong with this place. A city’s inhabitants, scooped up and disappeared.

But her curiosity had been piqued.

Slowly, she circled down, bringing the city closer.

When she was only a few hundred feet up, Sable’s unease crystallized into dread, like ice water had been dumped across her. At the same instant, black beads welled from the streets, from the walls of buildings, any nearby surface. They coalesced like condensation on a cold glass, growing rapidly, bubbles of tar joining and growing, taking shape by the second.

Sable reversed directions, horrified.

A nightmarish creature took shape beneath her. The black liquid formed into an enormous arm, many times the size of Sable’s body, then buried into the street and heaved itself up, the motion tearing a torso and head from the ground. Inky black eyes met Sable’s, and the abomination shrieked, mouth misshapen and bridged with thick strands of tar. The sound reverberated in her skull, obscene in a way hard to describe. Not just unnatural, but wrong.

Panicking, she desperately tried to put distance between her and the monster—and a real monster, this time, not the sorts Sable had been fighting in the dungeon—fleeing as fast as she could.

Terrified, she sent an [Inspect] the creature’s way.

[Greater Aspect of Lady Xenaya, The Exalted Consumption - Lv. ??]

The monster ripped a black javelin from the ground, yanking it into existence with a ripping sensation that tore at her skull. The weapon dripped with the same tar-like essence its body did. Rearing back, the monstrosity flung the spear at her, a flash of a movement even Sable couldn’t track. Only because of the distance she had created, and her relatively small size compared to the beast, did the streaking black missile not hit her. It soared past a half-dozen feet away, vanishing into the horizon, and creating a miniature hurricane that sent her careening sideways.

If that had landed, Sable doubted it was the sort of thing even she could have shrugged off.

The monster shrieked, infuriated it had missed. It pounded black liquid hands into nearby buildings, splashing liquid and bouncing harmlessly off the structures, an almost petulant display of anger. Meeting her gaze, it screamed one last time, then shattered, body breaking into a thousand pieces and scattering in enormous gouts of liquid. The black essence sank into the buildings, streets, and earth, vanishing as supernaturally fast as it had formed.

An eerie silence descended, the ear-shattering noises of the monster still echoing in her head.

Finally a safe distance away, Sable turned and heaved in air, beating her wings as she hovered in place. She stared at the now-quiet city, adrenaline shaking her.