(Book One Complete!) Friendly Neighbourhood Goblin (Mercenary Company LitRPG)

Mud squelched underfoot. Murky water splashed up his ankles. The reeds whispered ahead, in front, all around.

And Stump ran. His heart was in his throat, beating with such force it threatened to burst through his neck.

But still the chittering followed.

"Ergul!" a goblin called, his voice distant.

"You can't outrun me!" came another, closer.

"Our king will reward us!" The lust in the promise was so near Stump could smell it.

Ahead the voices of his allies were faint. Was that Rilla? Nell, maybe? Wick's stutter… or maybe it was the reeds. Soon those beacons of safety drifted further and further away, until Stump couldn't be certain they were ever more than a dream.

"There! He's slowing!"

"Mine! I'll carve out his heart!"

"I saw him first!"

The silence between Stump's patters lengthened. The breath wheezed out of his lungs, and before long he was doubling over and claiming what might've been the last look over his shoulder he would ever take.

They leapt from clutches of reeds, weaving in and out of view. Two, three, four. Maybe more. He resumed his strained jog, readying his spells, when he realized he'd already expended all his virtue.

A howl drowned out the wind.

"I see him! I'm on him! I—" a crunch swallowed the goblin's scream.

Stump slid to a stop. So did the goblins on his tail.

They looked around, uncertain. "Spikey-Toes, did you see—"

A hulking shadow cut across the bog, and a moment later a pair of half-sunk sandals was all that remained of the goblin.

The breath left Spikey-Toes. "Beast! Run!"

He made it a few steps before the shadow jerked him off his feet and carried him behind a patch of reeds. There was a struggle, a snarl, and the quickly diminishing protests of Spikey-Toes.

When the shadow bore down on the final two fleeing goblins, Stump spotted the fur.

The Beast of Umbral.

He ran.

Two screams became one, and then behind him there was silence, but only for a moment. The thump of heavy footfalls. The panting. The howling. Stump spun in time to feel the claws on his shoulders. His back cracked against the ground, stifling his cry for help.

And the eyes of the beast gazed into his. Narrow slits of black surrounded by yellow-gold fields. The saliva was warm, its breath hot. Teeth nearly the size of Stump's hand revealed themselves as the werewolf extended its jaws, then clamped its mouth around Stump's body.

They pierced skin, drawing blood, but it wasn't to kill.

It lifted Stump into the air like he weighed little more than a sack of grain, and bounded up the incline and down the road. He struggled to turn in the beast's maw to decipher where they were going, but soon he heard the voices of his friends.

He could only see their feet when the creature skidded to a halt. It opened its mouth, and Stump coughed as he hit the dirt. "Wick? Tallas?" he managed, before the beast collapsed on top of him.

"Werewolf!" said Rilla. A sword chimed out of its sheath.

"W-wait! Look!"

"Bright Queen… is it..?" Durgish faltered.

"Oh, I think it is," said Hadder.

Stump's breath came easier as the weight lessened. The fur shortened, muscles contracted, and soon Stump could see skin—human skin. By the time he recognized the features of Faelan, the farmer was motionless. Blood leaked out of his back, his leg, his arm.

Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (1/9)

"Fae! Fae! What's happened?" Nell rushed over and urged her husband awake, but he gave no reply. "Faelan!"

Tallas pulled her away, and Rilla fell to a knee next to Stump to examine the unresponsive farmer. "Your husband is a werewolf?" she accused.

"Aye, Beast o' Umbral, was it?" said Durgish. He circled curiously, but kept his distance.

"Check he's alive! My husband's not dead!"

Although he could barely move, Stump recognized the brief gusts of warmth leaving Faelan's nose, and the gentle but strained rise and fall of his chest. "He's… alive…" Stump grunted. "Will somebody… help me up?"

Wick and Hadder hauled the farmer to his feet and threw his arms over their shoulders. Stump looked away from Faelan's naked body.

"He's alive for now, but he won't be for much longer judgin' by 'em punctures," said Durgish.

"Help him! Don't you have something?" said Nell.

Wick looked around frantically. "Our packs. O…over there."

Their supplies lay sprawled where they had dropped them. They rushed over and rummaged for anything to stifle the wounds while Wick and Hadder lagged behind with the unconscious farmer.

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"No, no, the Blister Thistle's in the other one. No, the other pack, not the other pocket," Durgish ordered as he rifled through his own pouch. He produced a bright blue gummy material that stuck to his fingers, and carefully worked it into a film thin enough for light to bleed through.

"This one?" Hadder said, holding up a fairly innocuous stem with three dark green leaves.

"Aye. Tear 'em up and clap 'em in yer hands a couple times. Rub 'em in yer spit, too."

While Hadder noisily summoned a wad of saliva, Durgish threw Rilla a second pack of the sticky substance, and she wasted no time repeating the dwarf's moulding. When Tallas and Wick arrived with the Orwens, Hadder was already sticking bits of spit-coated leaves into the gum.

They laid Faelan flat in the road.

Durgish crouched next to a leg wound dark with blood and dirt. He mumbled some words while examining the injury and extended his arm to no one in particular. "Water," he said.

Rilla slapped a canteen in his palm. He twisted off the cap and rationed drops over the wound. "Bloodstone," he demanded.

Hadder rushed to their supplies and doubled back a moment later, handing Durgish a small, jagged yellow rock. The dwarf hovered it over Faelan's leg, and amidst an arcane hum bits of dirt and fabric lifted from the injury and stuck to the stone.

He set that aside and leaned in close, giving the gash a quick sniff. "Lumensa's grave," he breathed, wrinkling his nose. Arm extended. "Chappy Gum."

Rilla carefully transferred her creation dotted with Hadder's leaves, but Durgish hesitated. "Some light would help. Hadder, I think there's—"

A lumen thrummed above the dwarf's head. He traced the origin to Stump's outstretched hand, and gave a slow, considered nod. "Yer a Lumenurgist… ah, time for talk o' that later. Move it here, if ye could."

The dwarf stretched the gum—leaves on the underside—over Faelan's skin, then pressed his palm over it. His eyes closed and his lips moved around words no one could hear. The hum returned, and a soft white glow speared through the material. After a minute the light died, and Durgish opened his eyes again.

He glanced at everyone around him, who had been watching in rapt silence. Shyness reddened his cheeks, and he allowed a curt nod before he shuffled over to the next wound and held out his hand. "Water."

By the time Faelan's life was assured, the Orwen stead was a smoking ruin down the hill. Like ants the distant goblins scurried through the wreckage, slaughtering animals, tearing free unripe food, and circling in packs of roving beasts, frothing and cheering their victory. Which one of them is Griza? Was Yeza somewhere there too, forced to fight?

From one of those specks arced balls of flame, setting patches of farmland ablaze.

Stump narrowed his eyes. His fingers curled into fists. Thrung.

"Time to g-g… to go," said Wick, stepping beside him. "Stump…" the ratfolk paused and followed his gaze. "Is that him?"

Stump nodded slowly.

"And your… your friend? Uh, Prisoner."

He looked to his feet, and then back to the raging chaos. "She's gone her own way," he said sadly.

"Oh… alright," said Wick, who couldn't have known what that meant.

"Wicket! You and Hadder on duty to carry Faelan." Rilla's order snapped them to attention. "Durgish, you stay with Stump and Nell, ensure they don't fall behind."

"Yes, m-ma'am," said Wick, running over to Hadder to help hoist the gum-bandaged farmer to his feet.

"Whaddabout our supplies?" said Durgish. He was sitting on the side of the road, dragging a rag across his sweaty brow.

Rilla gave the pile of adventurer's packs and explorer's kits a regretful look. She cursed under her breath. "Take what you can carry. Leave the rest. There's no guarantee the goblins won't be on us when they're done torching the place, and those bastards move quick."

Stump fished the belt of obsidian out of his pack and fixed it around his waist, then took the paring knife, oil, and a lantern, and left the rest. He waddled over to Durgish, who remained in an exhausted slump.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

The dwarf looked up through beady eyes. "Could've been a fisherman, y'know? Could've been some flavour o' builder. No doubt me pa urged me to smelt or forge. Ye mess up there ye start fresh with a new ore. But no," said Durgish. He cocked a thumb at himself. "This bloody dwarf wanted to be a Medic, where yer blunder spells death… Help me up, will ye?"

The dwarf clasped his sweaty hand around Stump's.

They left the Orwen farm behind, and the crooked towers of smoke heralding its destruction. Stump allowed himself a final look back at their scattered supplies, and beyond to Griza.

They travelled slowly. Durgish ordered a stop several times to ensure the Chappy Gum hadn't loosened, and more than once Hadder or Wick paused to catch their breath and give their backs a break.

During the final leg of their journey they rested again, and despite being less than an hour's march from Peaktree, no one objected. Everyone except Rilla found a spot to fall to their knees or onto their backsides, and with nothing but the incessant wind of hilly farmland rolling around them, they met each other's gazes and recognized, for the first time in hours, that they were safe.

Stump found a spot near Nell to cross his legs.

Her curly blonde hair had tangled and darkened with dirt. Her clothes fared no better. She acknowledged his presence long enough to not shoo him away, but otherwise maintained a vacant stare ahead.

"He'll be alright," he said, after some time. "Durgish is a Medic. He knows how to help Faelan. And when we get to Peaktree, I'll make sure they take good care of him."

Her eyebrow twitched. "Peaktree," she said, as if the name better suited a death sentence than a reassurance. "The tyrant's the reason our farms have failed. They won't help us."

"They will. I promise. I'll talk to Tydas. And Maven, she'll be on your side. Merra's there, too. I think she's about your age. And she has a daughter—"

Nell's sharp glare gave him pause. "You've been working for them, haven't you?" she said. Stump rallied a reply, but she went on. "I won't begrudge you it. They've got glimmer aplenty, no doubt, from all they've plundered from our lands. You're not from here so you won't understand. You're a mercenary. You've got to side with whoever's got the brightest chest."

He let her say her piece, not because he believed it was true, but because she needed to. She'd been wronged, he knew. All of the farms beyond the Downs had.

"Can I show you something?" he said.

She gave him an odd look, but nodded.

Stump retrieved his company badge and wiped off the grime colonizing its surface, and handed it to her. She spent a long time reading the words.

"I know it must be hard to believe," he said. "Lots of companies have noble mottos, but when it really comes time to prove them, they don't. They let you down." He thought of how much value he had projected onto Garron's badge as it hitched a ride from his cave to the Downs, to Seabrace and Grimsgate, and finally to Shepherd's Hall, where the story of its wearer he had told in his head crashed hard against the reality of Torrig.

"I was hired by Peaktree. By Maven Valroy," he continued. "We were tasked with protecting their greenhouse from goblin raids, but Tydas told me about a vampire he thought might be living nearby, at your farm. I agreed to go because I didn't want him to kill the vampire. I… I know one myself, and he's a good friend. He's a good person, like your husband. And I know Tydas will see that if we help him to."

Nell slowly shook her head. "Fae is the Beast of Umbral," she said, her throat thick with disbelief. "He's no vampire, but… what will they do when they find out?"

What will the vampire do when they find out? was the thought Stump refrained from saying out loud. If the struggle between werewolves and vampires was true, and the vampire really was at Peaktree, then if they weren't careful a microcosm of the war in Borovic was about to descend on the manor amidst an impending goblin invasion.

"We'll deal with that if it comes to it. Otherwise no one will say a word," said Stump. He stood and stepped in front of her. He offered a hand, and a pained smile. "For now let's get Fae to safety, and something to eat. I'm sure Peaktree's got a delicious breakfast planned."

They were on the move again minutes later, and after a few more stops the hill neared and the manor rolled into view, announced by the bright sentries of its fields. When they were close enough, Stump raised a lumen of his own and sent it streaking into the sky.

The doors parted, and figures rushed down the hill to meet them.