John and the hobgoblins waited, somewhat impatiently in his case, a few minutes after killing the zombie, if 'killing' was even the right word, to make sure that no others were drawn from the rest of the buildings. Fortunately, if there was anything else out there, it didn't seem to be alerted to their presence quite yet, giving them the advantage of choosing where to fight the next battle.
'What are your orders, Lord?' Glorg asked in a soft voice after it became clear that nothing else was coming out, his pose relaxed, but his eyes alert as he kept a careful watch on the situation. The two soldiers were taking their cues from Glorg and had adopted a similar pose, staying alert to danger but not tensing up anxiously. It was more likely a testament to the many strange situations they'd encountered in the past than anything else, but it was still reassuring to know they weren't spooked by the sudden appearance of the undead.
'Well, the way I see it, we only really have one option to go with right now. We're going to sweep the exterior buildings first and then breach the central lodge once we're sure we won't be hit from behind. If there are too many enemies, we'll fall back and regroup, but if we can take them piecemeal, we'll be fine. We can not allow a threat like this to exist so close to the altar and our new settlement, understood?' John looked between the hobgoblins expectantly, each nodding forcefully and gripping their swords tighter in anticipation. John truly did hope that they could manage whatever this place threw at them, he didn't want to imagine the damage a few zombies could do if they stumbled into their settlement in the dead of night.
'Your will shall be done,' Glorg growled, his eyes lighting up with a hunger for battle, oblivious to John's worry for what their failure could mean.
'Okay, let's move out,' John said, putting aside thoughts of failure and focusing on the here and now. They'd retreated a short distance from the storehouse to give them some room, so the first thing to do was head back to it and check it out for any other enemies. A single glance through the door told John that there were no other zombies present and that the interior was in surprisingly good condition. The storehouse seemed to have been filled with crates of supplies, most of which had long since rotted away. The remnants they could see were their only clues to what might have been kept here.
Moving on to the next of the outlying buildings, they found that this time the door was already broken, jagged sections of rotting wood pointing out from the interior. They edged closer, somewhat apprehensively, to peer through the door and see what lay within. Unfortunately, the motion must have drawn the attention of the remaining inhabitant, as a zombie groaned and came stumbling out with a wild swing at them.
Just like the last one, the zombie was mostly flesh with large patches of exposed bone and was humanoid in shape. Time and rot had made it difficult to guess at the zombie's race, however. The lack of features beyond the bones themselves gave no additional clues either.
The most disconcerting part of these zombies was their awkward, sporadic movement and the strange grinding or clicking sounds made from the bones moving against each other. Fortunately, they knew how to deal with the zombie this time and quickly agreed on a plan before spreading out.
The zombie seemed to home in on the hobgoblin that had awoken it, so the soldier in question let it come close and swing for him before dancing back, letting Glorg, who'd flanked around the unthinking creature, pierce the heart from behind by grabbing its neck and ramming his sword in.
Black ichor sprayed out through the fleshless parts of its body as the zombie toppled to the ground and Glorg quickly looked into the building it had come from before announcing it was clear.
Feeling confident in their ability to deal with the zombies so far, the group quickly moved on to the last of the outlying buildings, repeating the process with the zombie they found there, before turning their attention to the long building with the attached pen. There was a big set of double doors leading into the interior from the side facing the lodge. Still, given that the zombies seemed to sense them if they came too close, they opted to circle the outside and clamber over the fence of the pen to enter on that side. The new angle of approach would hopefully let them see any enemies before they got too close. One of Glorg's men went first, then Glorg and John, with the last hobgoblin bringing up the rear.
The interior of the building reminded John of a stable. It had lots of partitioned stalls with swinging doors, all of which were unlocked and open. The stalls themselves seemed to have been made with what had once been sturdy wooden panelling. But now the interior was littered with holes in between the stalls, damaged wood and piles of debris.
A large amount of debris, mixed with the lack of natural light, made the stables a dangerous place. A danger that was highlighted when they heard the grinding and clicking of a zombie moving. The group all froze in place as the sounds echoed through the building before everything descended into chaos as three zombies came lurching out at them from behind, or through, different bits of debris and broken wall.
The sounds had given them all a split second warning to ready themselves, but it wasn't quite enough time for the hobgoblin behind John to avoid the oncoming zombie. The creature had been inside one of the pens and must have been slowly moving towards them since they entered, the debris slowing it and muffling its movement. This particular zombie was slightly more whole than the other two, but its body was just as robust as the others, and its leathery flesh was all but ignoring the hobgoblins sword as he cut at it.
Any living enemy would have at least moved to dodge, block or even flinch at the hit in some way, but the zombie took the blow to the ribs and closed to hand to hand with the hobgoblin, it's skeletal fingers clawing at him and trying to drag him closer so it could bite him.
John couldn't use his sword with them both so entangled, so he dropped it, lunging in to grab the zombie from behind instead and holding it away from the hobgoblin. Wrapping one arm around its neck, he fixed it's head in place to stop it biting him, leaving just the hands free to attack him.
A second later he realised that the hands were a bit more dangerous than he initially thought, he could see where its claws had ripped through the hobgoblins leather armour in places. Pulling the surprisingly strong zombie away from his comrade, he felt it change its motions and start trying to attack him instead. It's claw-like hands now scrabbling at him where he held it's neck. He couldn't dodge the attacks effectively in such a position, and though he tried to keep it off balance by hauling it backwards, John felt one of its claws connect with his arm, a sharp pain making him hiss as it ripped down through leather and cloth to gouge into his flesh.
Angrily twisting and throwing with his whole body, John sent the zombie tumbling to the floor, allowing the waiting hobgoblin to step in and stab the creature through the heart, ending its unlife in a now-familiar spray of ichor. Grabbing his sword from the floor, John turned to see Glorg repeatedly smashing his zombie's head into the floor, his sword lost somewhere, while the last hobgoblin was on his back and trying desperately to stop the zombie atop him from biting his face.
The hobgoblin John had saved rushed to help his commander, so John went to help the hobgoblin on his back, noticing as he did that the soldier's sword was stuck in the zombie's ribcage, he'd just been unlucky and had missed the heart.
Coming in from the side, John rammed his sword through the zombie's skull and pulled it up and away, levering it off the beleaguered soldier. Despite its head being pierced by his sword and forced to look away from him, the zombie was still able to land a hit on his arm as it clawed at him, though this time it merely gouged away a part of his armour. Fighting against it the whole time, John managed to get the zombie on it's front and dropped down to put his knee on it's back, crunching bone and pinning its upper body in place. With it unable to quite reach him, it was just a matter of withdrawing his sword, and a few stabs in through its flesh-covered back to finally destroy the heart.
'Damn, their claws are nasty,' John muttered as the pain from the gash on his arm finally got through the adrenaline, considering that their hands were mostly flesh with bone sticking out they cut through leather and flesh surprisingly easily. No doubt it was something to do with the magic animating them, but it gave this whole affair an extra level of danger, one unlucky hit could take any of them out of action. His arm wound was the worst of the injuries they sustained thankfully. He had a feeling that the lodge itself was going to be worse and he wanted to be heading in with the full group, not having to leave someone behind.
'Okay, let's make sure there's nothing else in here and then make for the main building,' John said as he pulled out a bandage from his belt and covered the wound he'd taken. Fortunately, the undead seemed to rely on a magical way to sense them, so the blood that stained his left arm shouldn't give them away.
The three hobgoblins spread out at his order and carefully searched through the rest of the building, finding a disturbing amount of bones but not much else. With the outlying buildings secured, all that was left was the lodge itself, something John had been quite confident about dealing with a few minutes ago. The fight with those three zombies had shown him how dangerous they could be in close quarters, however.
They took a few moments to prepare, swords were cleaned, and the few injuries the hobgoblins had taken were treated as best they could. Glorg had a cut running along the side of his face from a near miss. Apparently, the zombie who'd jumped him had tried to scratch his eye out, but fortunately, the cut was below the eye, so it wasn't interfering with his vision.
Regrouping outside the iron-bound double doors that led into the lodge, John studied the building once more, noting it's relatively good condition and how solid it still looked. It was clear that a lot more time and effort had been spent here than on the outer buildings. The lodge was quite a good size. It's two storeys looked like they housed a good ten rooms on each floor, a useful amount of capacity one it was in their hands. Pushing all other considerations away, John focused on what they were doing and gestured for the two soldiers to proceed, his heart quickening as they grabbed the pull rings on the doors and slowly dragged them open with a low groaning sound from the battered wood.
Stagnant air wafted out from the long-sealed entrance to the lodge and John peered into the gloomy interior as the hobgoblins pulled back to wait for whatever was in there. The dust from the sudden intrusion of wind slowly settled once more as minutes passed and nothing appeared from beyond where the light reached.
'Something is amiss here Lord, I think we may need to go in to clear this place out,' Glorg said, his gravelly voice breaking the silence that had been stretching on for an uncomfortably long time.
'I agree, do you have the supplies to make some torches to carry in, I have no intention of fighting whatever is in there in the dark,' John said after a moment's thought, the sun was high in the sky still. Hence, they had hours of daylight left to prepare if needed, and even if this were all they managed today, he would be happy.
'We will need suitable wood and wrappings for the top, so it burns well. I think these nearby trees are too thin though, I'll take a man and get something suitable,' Glorg said with a firm nod. He whistled to grab the attention of one of the soldiers and took off back to the denser part of the woodland that surrounded the estate.
The two hobgoblins quickly disappeared from view, leaving just John and the other solider to watch the entrance to the lodge. With half the group gone, John's thoughts slowly turned introspective as he realised this was the first moment since he'd awoken that he wasn't doing something or going somewhere.
Something in the back of his mind told him that this was all so surreal and that he shouldn't be as calm as he was, but it was a small, distant voice that was all but ignored with everything else going on. The truth of the matter was that he felt like this was just right somehow. He had a sense of belonging when he thought about the clan, a warm feeling in his gut that he didn't get thinking about any of the shattered memories of his past life. It was just all so confusing when he stopped to think about it, yet another good reason to focus on getting things done in the here and now, his existential crisis could wait until the invasion was beaten back.
The soldier that had been left behind with him had been keeping an eye on the interior of the lodge while John was having a moment of reflection. As John dragged himself back to the present, he saw the hobgoblin had approached the entrance and was peering into the dark interior warily. The soldier seemed on edge as he surveyed the interior. His sword was in hand and ready for action.
'What's wrong?' John asked as he took a single step towards the hobgoblin. The soldier turned his head to face him and answer the question when a shadow that was lurking in the dark corner of the interior exploded forwards with unnatural speed.
The shadow moved at the moment that the hobgoblins attention wavered to him, flashes of pale flesh and elongated features sending a shiver down John's spine as the creature darted through a pool of light in a direct line for the soldier.
John shouted a warning and immediately ran towards the soldier, but by the time his words registered, and the soldier turned back to the lodge, the creature was upon him.
Comfortably six and a half foot tall if it stood straight, the creature was something straight out of a nightmare, it had once been human, that much was clear. Its flesh was as tight as a drum on its body, it's features drawn, and it's skin lifeless with the colour of chalk. Long tapering talons scraped across the floor as it ran in a hunched over position, it's long legs pushing it forward at a speed beyond that of a mortal man. The most horrific part, however, was the face itself, the whole head, and especially the jaw, had been transformed to be a more triangular and pointed shape, it's teeth replaced by needle points from which rotted flesh still hung. The creature's eyes were completely white and glazed over, but that didn't stop it from tracking the hobgoblin perfectly and launching itself at him in a blurring pounce that would bring him to the ground.
The soldier was caught in a terrible situation, but his trained reflexes kicked in at John's shout, and he turned and slashed in one movement. He was too slow to do any real damage to the creature, but the impact in its side slowed it for a split second and let him cover his face as one of its hands ripped towards his neck. The long talons cut through his armour and flesh like butter, blood spraying up into the air from the force of the impact.
Almost with a mind of its own, the creature's tongue unrolled from its mouth and flicked forward to catch the blood, the tip curling like a prehensile tail to capture and collect its prize.
Horror swept over John as he raced towards the creature, he could see the soldier struggling to buck it off him and fight back, but the ghoul was too fast and too strong, it's talons shredding the hobgoblins arms as he desperately tried to protect his neck from its attacks. Ghoul. Yes, now that he'd used the word in his mind he knew it was correct. Some information floated up to his waking mind on what ghouls were, but none of it was useful right now.
Lunging the last few feet, and twisting his hips to throw all of his weight into the attack, John aimed to skewer the ghoul right through the chest, but at the last moment, the creature scurried off of the heavily wounded soldier. John spared the soldier a glance to make sure he was alive, which he somehow was, even with all of the arm wounds and heavy claw marks from where the ghoul had perched on his gut. Even that glance was almost too much as the ghoul leapt towards him, but John was half expecting the attack and dodged to one side as he slashed at it, his blade cutting a straight line down its side. A blood-curdling howl split the air as his blade broke skin, the same black ichor from the zombies leaking out from where he'd cut the ghoul.
Encouraged by his success, John went on the offensive, slashing, stabbing and hacking at the creature time and again in an attempt to either corner it or keep it busy. While he did manage to keep it busy, he didn't corner the ghoul, it was simply too quick for him to stay in contact with and he had no desire to push his luck by entering the lodge.
A flash of grey was all the warning he had as the ghoul dodged one of his blows and tried to rend his arm in half in response, his dodge coming a moment too late as searing pain blossomed down his arm where the talons ripped flesh and leather alike. More importantly, there was a spray of blood alongside the flesh. Blood that the ghoul's tongue immediately reached out to collect. Acting on instinct, John's sword flashed up to meet the unnaturally long tongue and sliced clean through, the wound immediately gushing ichor as the ghoul wailed in pain and horror.
Taking full advantage of its pain and distraction, John brought his sword around in a tight half-moon and swept it back across the creature, angling it down so that it cut deep into the ghoul's chest and all the way across. Ichor sprayed out across the grass as the ghoul reared back from the pain, but John wasn't done yet. Keeping his sword moving and keeping the momentum going, he launched himself into a series of sweeping slashes that cut the ghoul in half a dozen different spots, each one cutting it open just that little more. When he was satisfied that the ghoul's now pitiful attempts to dodge were final, John swept his blade across and brought it back in a perfect lunge that sent his sword piercing straight through the ghoul's skull.
Twisting the blade before withdrawing it, John immediately impaled the creature's heart, to make sure, before hurrying back to the hobgoblin, his leathers covered in ichor spray from the fight. Thankfully the soldier still lived, though only barely, and John immediately set to bandaging him up as the other two hobgoblins came rushing back onto the scene, swords at the ready to deal with any threat they might see.
*
Congratulations.
For clearing the Ruins, you are awarded control of the Hunting Estate and 1SP.
Current options for Hunting Estate
- Leave empty.
- Assign to a group within the clan.
- Destroy the Estate.
*
'Damn it all!' John raged, shaking his fist at the sky as his head throbbed in pain. It was one thing to get information when he was healthy and rested; it was another when he was bleeding from half a dozen places and had just survived a life or death struggle.
Shaking it off and rubbing his temples wearily with trembling hands, John took a few deep and calming breaths. Gathering himself, John focused on the assigning aspect and was given a list of all the groups within the clan, which came down to one of the four names he knew on sight. Looking at the stables thoughtfully, a crooked grin appeared on his face before he made his choice.
*
Choice confirmed.
Hunting Estate is now assigned to Wolfrider Fuzz and the wolfriders of the Broken Tooth clan.
For synergy with the Estate's nature, there is an increased chance that any breeding or training of wolves on this site will be successful.
Additionally, the Estate will provide a steady source of prey animals in the local area for hunting and training.
*
Despite his pain, John could only smile in happiness; the synergy bonus was proof he'd chosen right as far as he was concerned. He was a little concerned about the last part, but for all that he was terrified of the idea of something as dangerous as a wolf being under orders by a goblin, he also couldn't wait to see it in action!