The air at the mouth of the swamp was a cold, wet blanket woven from the threads of mist and decay. It smelled of stagnant water, of rotting vegetation, and of the low, animal funk of a large goblin settlement. Before us, a crude but effective palisade of sharpened logs rose from the murky water, its gate a heavy, reinforced slab of dark wood. On the ramparts, a score of goblin archers nocked arrows, their beady, hate-filled eyes fixed on our small, arrogant war party. Behind the wall, I could hear the guttural shouts and the clang of weapons as the rest of Grob's tribe scrambled to form a battle line.
I stood at the head of our column, a lone, unarmored human flanked by two formidable Hobgoblin champions. Gnar, to my right, was a silent mountain of olive-green muscle and dark iron, his new sword resting on his shoulder. Rakka, to my left, was a coiled spring of wiry strength, her enchanted cleaver held in a white-knuckled grip, her single eye burning with a cold, personal hatred for the brother who had betrayed her. Behind us, the rest of our small, elite force—eight of the best warriors from our combined tribes—stood in a perfect, silent shield wall, a testament to Elara's brutal but effective training.
The scene was a perfect tableau of suicidal folly. A dozen warriors challenging a fortress of fifty. It was a joke. A piece of theater. And I was its director.
"They are laughing at us, Speaker," Gnar rumbled, his deep voice a low note of contained violence. "They see a small meal, not a threat."
"Let them laugh," I said, my voice calm and steady. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs, a primal, terrified rhythm that was a stark contrast to the icy calm of my mind. Every second that passed was another second for Elara, another precious tick of the clock for her to slip through the shadows and find her mark. My job was to hold the stage. To be the most fascinating, most arrogant, most unbelievably stupid fool this tribe had ever seen.
I had prepared for this. I reached into a pouch at my belt and pulled out a small, flat river stone with a hole carved into the middle. It was cool and smooth in my palm. The night before, I had spent a draining hour inscribing it with a simple, temporary rune. It was not a weapon. It was a microphone.
[Rune of Amplification (Minor)]
[Effect: Channels the user's vocal energy, amplifying it tenfold for a short duration. A simple cantrip of acoustic engineering.]
I channeled a small thread of mana into the stone. It hummed with a low, resonant energy. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the foul swamp air, and I spoke.
My voice, powered by the rune, was not my own. It was the voice of a giant, a god, a sound that rolled across the marshland like a physical wave, silencing the jeering archers, rattling the very logs of their palisade.
"I AM KALE LUCAS, THE BLESSED ONE, SPEAKER FOR THE MOURNINGLORD!"
The sheer, unexpected volume of it stunned them into silence. The goblins on the wall flinched, their bows wavering.
"YOUR CHIEFTAIN, GROB, IS A SNAKE AND A COWARD!" I boomed, my voice a thunderclap of pure, theatrical contempt. "HE HIDES BEHIND HIS WALL OF ROTTING LOGS WHILE TRUE WARRIORS STAND BEFORE HIM! I HAVE COME TO OFFER YOU A NEW PATH! A PATH TO STRENGTH! A PATH TO GLORY! SEND OUT YOUR CHAMPION! LET US END THIS CHARADE!"
The silence that followed was thick, heavy, and filled with a stunned, furious disbelief. Then, the gate groaned open, and a single figure strode out, flanked by two hulking goblin brutes in heavy armor. He was not Grob. He was a large, powerfully built goblin with a jagged scar across his face and a cruel, intelligent sneer. My Analysis skill flared, feeding me the data.
[Target: Zog, Goblin Pit Boss (Level 9)]
[Vocation: Warrior (Slaver)]
[Status: Arrogant, Overconfident. Grob's primary enforcer.]
Perfect. The exact piece I needed.
"I have come to offer your master a chance to die with a scrap of honor," I replied, my voice still a resonant boom that made him wince. "But I see he sent his favorite dog to bark for him instead."
Zog's sneer tightened. "Grob does not waste his time with insects. You want a fight? You have one. My head against your pet's." He pointed a clawed finger at Gnar. "Let's see if your tall-goblins bleed like the rest of them."
This was it. The parley. The opening move in a game he didn't even know he was playing. While our voices clashed, my mind was already at work, reaching out, a silent, invisible tendril of pure will.
[Activating Skill: Subtle Influence (Tier 4)]
The drain on my mana was a sharp, sudden pull, a familiar hollowing-out sensation. The hum in my skull intensified. I focused my entire being on Zog. I was not pushing a simple command. I was performing surgery. I was implanting a story, a complex, paranoid, and utterly believable lie, directly into the architecture of his brutish, ambitious mind. I wrapped the lie in the images of his own memories: the way Grob looked at him with those cold, calculating eyes; the whispers he'd overheard between Grob and the swamp shaman; the convenient way his own rivals within the tribe had a habit of disappearing on "failed" patrols.
The thought I pushed was not my own. It was a seed I planted, designed to sprout as one of his own cunning, terrified realizations.
This is a test. No. It's a purge. Grob made a deal. He promised Ufgak our heads. He's using this 'challenge' to get rid of me, to get rid of everyone not in his inner circle. He'll let us die out here, then claim we were weak, that he had to ally with his brother to save the tribe. He's selling us out. He's selling ME out.
I felt the psychic resistance, the wall of his arrogant, confident mind. I didn't try to shatter it. I flowed around it, letting the tendrils of my suggestion seep into the cracks of his own paranoia. I felt the subtle, terrifying give, the moment the lie ceased to be mine and became his truth.
On the outside, nothing had changed. But I saw it. A flicker in his eyes. A subtle tightening of the muscles in his jaw. His gaze, which had been fixed on Gnar, darted for a fraction of a second to the goblins on the wall behind him. He was no longer looking at his backup. He was looking at his executioners.
"Enough talk," Gnar growled, taking his cue from a silent, mental nudge I had sent him. He took a heavy, deliberate step forward, his sword held ready. "We fight."
Zog flinched. He looked from Gnar's advancing, monstrous form to the impassive faces on the wall, and his arrogance shattered, replaced by a raw, animal panic. He was trapped. He was being sacrificed.
"Wait!" he shrieked, holding up a hand. But it was too late. Gnar was a force of nature, a landslide of iron and purpose. He was not going to wait.
Zog did the only thing a cornered, terrified goblin could do. He abandoned his post. He spun, not to face Gnar, but to flee back to the gate. "It's a trap!" he screamed at the guards on the wall. "He's sold us to his brother! Open the gate! Let me in!"
The goblins on the wall stared, their faces a mask of pure, uncomprehending confusion. Their champion, their Pit Boss, was running. He was screaming about betrayal. It did not compute.
The two brutes who had flanked Zog hesitated, their simple minds caught in a loop of conflicting orders. That hesitation was all Gnar needed.
He didn't slow. He crashed into the first brute with the force of a charging Gristle-Boar, his shield taking the goblin's clumsy sword-stroke, his own blade a blur as it sheared through the goblin's leather armor and deep into his chest. The brute went down with a wet gurgle, his life a spreading, dark pool on the marshy ground.
Rakka was on the other one, her movements a whirlwind of pent-up rage. Her enchanted cleaver, glowing with a faint, blue light, met the brute's sword with a sharp, ringing clang. The brute was stronger, but Rakka was faster, fueled by a lifetime of hatred. She ducked under a wild swing and drove her own blade into the soft spot of his armpit, the magically-honed edge parting armor and flesh with a sickening, wet sound.
Zog, seeing his bodyguards fall, seeing the gate remain closed, finally snapped. His fear turned to a rabid, cornered-rat fury. He drew his own weapon, a nasty, serrated blade, and turned on the nearest archer on the wall. "Traitors!" he roared. "You'll die with him!"
And with that single, desperate act, the spark was thrown into the powder keg. The carefully constructed hierarchy of Grob's tribe, a thing held together by fear and a fragile chain of command, shattered. The goblins on the wall, seeing their commander attack them, seeing the two powerful humans and their Hobgoblin army now charging their gate, had no idea who the real enemy was. Some remained loyal, firing arrows at us. Others, friends of Zog, turned on their comrades. The ramparts devolved into a chaotic, desperate scrum.
"NOW!" I roared, the Rune of Amplification sending my voice booming over the battlefield. I pointed my sword at the gate. "THEIR LEADERS HAVE FALLEN! THEIR WALL IS BROKEN! FOR THE MOURNINGLORD!"
My army charged. The Gutter-Guard and Rakka's warriors hit the faltering, disorganized line at the gate not as a wave, but as a wedge. The shield wall, a beautiful, ugly thing of wood and iron, slammed into the panicked goblins, and the line broke.
The combat was a maelstrom of brutal, intimate violence. It was not a battle of formations, but a series of desperate, one-on-one struggles. Gnar was a whirlwind of death, his sword a blur, each swing a lesson in the brutal economy of motion. Rakka fought with a savage, joyous fury, her enchanted cleaver a thing of terrible beauty as it bit through leather and bone.
I remained behind the line, a calm, cold eye in the heart of the hurricane. My work was not yet done. The chaos I had created was a beautiful, unpredictable thing, but it needed to be guided.
I focused my will, drawing on the last, deep reserves of my mana. The hum in my skull rose to a high, thin whine. This was the final, grand performance.
[Activating Skill: Phantom Visage]
I didn't create a single illusion. I created a dozen. All along the flanks of the battle, just at the edge of the treeline, shimmering, translucent figures began to appear. They were goblins, but they were clad in the distinctive, wolf-pelt armor of Ufgak's tribe. They raised their spears, their silent, ghostly war-cries a visual promise of a new army about to enter the fray.
The effect was absolute. The goblins of Grob's tribe, already consumed by paranoia and fear, saw the ghostly figures of their tribal rivals appearing on their flanks. The lie I had planted in Zog's mind was now a visible, undeniable truth. Grob had betrayed them. Ufgak's army was here to finish the job.
The last vestiges of their morale evaporated. They were no longer an army. They were a terrified mob, caught between the hammer of my advancing forces and the ghostly anvil of their own tribal hatred. They broke. They threw down their weapons. They turned on each other, a self-devouring serpent of chaos and fear.
I had not just defeated them. I had turned them into the instrument of their own destruction.
The gate was ours. The path into the camp was clear. Gnar and Rakka, their faces smeared with blood and victory, looked to me for the next command. The camp was a swirling vortex of internecine slaughter, a beautiful, ugly symphony of my own composition.
From the corner of my vision, I saw a flicker of movement, a grey ghost detaching itself from the chaos. Elara. Her part of the plan had begun.
I raised my sword, its point aimed at the chieftain's hall, a dark, malevolent shape looming at the center of the camp. The time for subtlety was over. The time for the final, bloody crescendo had arrived.
I sent a single, silent, urgent thought pulsing along the bond I shared with my Captain, a final, simple command that was both an order and a prayer.
Now, Elara. Now.