Dark elves checked off a lot of boxes dark skin, long pointy elf ears, tomboys, and willing to show their more feminine side. The best-equipped dark elf stood in front of the carriage with a rolled-up carpet made of spider silk. It unrolled it in front of him before casually knocking on the door of the carriage. A violent bang sounded through the iron monstrosity. The door started to open, and he heard something musical before it was suddenly closed. Once the carpet was fully unraveled, another knock signaled the door to open, and the daughter of Ur took a step on the lip of the carriage and slipped on her high heels.
He saw a flash of a black dress with white frills and a close approximation of a thong. The dark elf's firm ass fell on the carriage floor while the guard quickly closed the door.
He mentally added an order of metal grooves or a cheap, nailed-down leather carpet. Something to keep people from slipping on the floor of the carriage's interior. Upon closer inspection, there was a sweet spot between where the artwork on the carriage looked like kindergarten scribbles or something intimidating. It would all have to be painted over. Maybe a solid black carriage would be an improvement.
"Presenting the daughter of Ur princess Zigga, the bloody." The dark elf guard said.
The door swung open, and the girl placed a shaky foot on the ground before another slowly found purchase. Silas couldn't take any more of this mess.
He made his way forward while the dark elves and gobs tensed. "What are you doing?" The guard captain asked.
"Helping her out of this shoddy piece of shit," Silas growled.
Not one of the dark elves drew their crossbows. Silas could be about to snap her neck before cutting her captain down. That was sloppy; he would have to reprimand them. Instead, he opened the door and grabbed her hand.
The dark elf froze when their eyes met. Zigga grabbed the amulet hanging from her neck. "It's made from the broken shards of a red lord stone. My father gave it to me."
Silas leaned in and grabbed her around the waist and back before lifting her. Elves were light, and Zigga was no exception.
"What are you doing here? Surely your father didn't send you." Silas pulled her free of the carriage and spun her around. Zigga's dress fluttered in the wind before he let her walk.
"So this is your base of operations. Clearly, you need an elf's touch." Zigga said.
He felt the jab even if he didn't build the village himself. Silas had a thing for indoor plumbing, even roads, and a functional society. Aesthetics were only important when all necessities were met. So who would he rather have, 13 dark elves with broken gear and a metal bouncy house of a carriage or a functional village of gobs? So maybe he felt a little less than polite.
"Did you bring any blacksmiths or just soldiers with broken gear?" Silas asked her.
"No, but I plan to meet all our needs. The goblins can at least handle scavenging for food and scouting while we search for some dwarves. Once we find some and they pledge themselves to you, they can fix our gear. We can use some of the piping goblin villages are known to have under their houses." Zigga said.
They were still walking down the carpet; her guard captain was already rolling behind them. When the elf told him her plans. In essence, she wanted to destroy their infrastructure to fix the weapons of dark elves with, at best unknown loyalties.
Grisha glared at Zigga with all the ferocity of a woman with her hot shower threatened. "Well, while that is an interesting plan, let's adjust it." Silas surveyed his village's nice tall, easily defendable stone walls with the slow-rising smoke from numerous smoking houses.
"We're going to kill the rest of the monkeys separating us from the outside, find some dwarves to redesign your carriage into something comfortable, and then we're going to find Monstergirl villages to trade with," Silas said.
One of the dark elves ran in front of him. "Why should you be in charge? You're an aspirant without a lord stone. All you're useful for is replacing our numbers." The dark elf said.
She was the kind of girl to jump off a cliff and demand Mushroom Jesus save her.
He grabbed her, lifted her off her feet, and tossed her away. The dark elf flew, tumbling over the dirt. She struggled to her knees while the dark elves stared. She drew her crossbow and fired. Silas plucked the quarrel from the air.
Firing safety was another category that he would have to talk to the girls about. What if it had hit a friendly? The more he looked at his new dark elves, the worse off they appeared. If they didn't have such firm fat asses and sexy big titties, they wouldn't be good for much.
Maybe the gobs had spoiled him. Running water, a small sewage treatment plant, and hot showers were a cut above the rest. Comparing his favorite short stacks to the dark elves was a little unfair. There were probably sides to the dark elves besides their bodies that he hadn't given them time to show off. First impressions were important, and he gave his the same as the elves.
So far, they have shown themselves incompetent engineers over-concerned with aesthetics, clumsy planners, and hotheads unconcerned with friendly fire. He glanced back at the moles who pulled the carriage. Silas added animal husbandry as a point in their favor. Conversely, he presented himself as a caring, well-dressed man who could quickly move into violence and catch crossbow quarrels.
…
When he presented himself to help her out of the bastard carriage, she expected him to ask for something in return. By presenting himself in a way that showed himself to be a princely example of an aspirant, Zigga expected his first demand was for her ass. It was the only thing she had left to bargain with. Instead, he held his demands back and allowed her to complete their introduction. She expected him to be impressed by her forethought of ripping the propriety out from under the goblin's village to turn into weapons after enslaving some dwarves but no. Oh, he was on board with enslaving dwarves, but he preferred amenities like showers over power.
He didn't want to rule; he wanted to trade with neighboring villages. It was vile to the point it went against everything she believed in. Zigga blamed the goblins; it had to be those little green bitches who tainted her aspirant before she managed to get to him. She would do what was right and make her father proud by curating a proper heir. All she had to do was dangle what all aspirants wanted in front of him. Slaves and power made things so much easier.
A filthy green pest ran up from a small, poorly dug tunnel. "Lord Sissy saw an army on its way here. They have Gnolls."
"Get the moles and carriage inside; I want gobs on the walls with our best spears. Then, Zigga, get your girls on the taller roofs and use your crossbows to snipe any gnoll you see." Silas pulled a long weapon with a handle she had never seen before. He started loading large bolts into the side of the weapon before pulling the lever at the bottom. "Move; we don't have time to stand around," Silas said.
Zigga stared, frozen while her warriors moved, forcing her behind mud-packed brick walls built by goblins. While the walls were tall for goblins but only 20ft, an easy leap for a gnoll. She heard laughter in the distance, and her blood went cold.
A beast gnoll charged out of the darkness, fangs dripping with a viral load to turn its surviving prey into more of its kind. Her ears rang, and the gnoll went down. Silas pulled the lever of his weapon and fired again, hitting the gnoll in the head. The monster went down and stayed down.
Yellow eyes filled her view from torch light as her eyes adjusted to infrared for a better view. The door to the goblin village shut behind her, leaving the aspirant outside with the monsters.
"I will have to find a new lord or be joined to the current one though I doubt my sister wants an assistant." She said.
"So you're a liability," Silas said.
…
"This is absurd; no aspirant would lock their assistant away during a battle. Zigga is a great warrior; we need her." Arsia said.
Silas wasn't in the mood. He couldn't ignore the screams. Zigga put him out of action, and they knew it. Silas should be on the roof, sniping the enemy numbers down. Instead, gobs were poking the gnolls with sticks. Knots weren't his specialty, but he knew enough. Zigga wouldn't get out and betray them without help.
"Get on the roof and use your crossbow." Silas checked his rifle to make sure it wouldn't jam. "We will discuss our partnership when the battle's done," Silas said.
"How do we know you will be victorious? You have less than a hundred goblins, 12 dark elves, and your prowess. A human without even the power of will can't fight monsters."
The way Silas saw it, they were mostly holding the wall and fighting from the high ground. Losses were large on the onset but had drastically decreased. 12 gobs were dead to gnoll beasts and 25 gnolls. Walls mattered, and his enemy threw their numbers on their spears. Goblins didn't run when defending their base.
"The enemy made a mistake, and it has cost them any chance of victory," Silas said.
Grisha shot into the room carrying his white tiger spear. "The enemy dark lord has appeared; he's raising the dead."
"That's at least a tier 4 spell if he isn't using a medium. Were there any bugs or bulges in the bodies?" Zigga said.
That sounded like some G virus shit. Maybe it would be time to counter with a blitzkrieg of his own. A smile spread across Silas's face. He was about to scare the shit out of a dark lord.
"Around the neck, I think I saw something," Grisha said.
"Parasites, he's infected his gnoll and puppets the corpses with them once the host dies," Zigga said.
"Tell everyone to target the neck then and here." Silas handed Grisha three vials of refined vampire blood. "Have anyone wounded by the creatures drink some," Silas said.
He hopped on his toes to loosen up before his charge. It was time he showed a little dark lord bitch who the real top dog was. This was like an action movie mixed with the lord of the Rings, hentai, and resident evil. At the end of the fight, he planned to say his sutra and take all the blood essence on the battlefield. That should be enough to refine the second tier of the apocalypse demon body refinement scripture. He shadow-boxed to get his shoulders ready for some stabbing.
Silas hopped out of the window and climbed to the roof. He fired hiding gnolls and undead goblins until his rifle went empty, reloaded, and went at it again. There were hundreds of enemies; all he had were spears for his troops. Changing that might tip the balance of power in the world, but not by as much as he would like. He shot the dark lord, and his bullet hit something. It seemed the only way forward was forward.
He shot the gnolls between himself and the dark lord. The odds of the enemy using a dummy and hiding out as a foot soldier weren't 0. If Silas had necromancy powers, he would first set up a decoy and trick it out with defenses. What use was a shield if it broke? Unfortunately, if he didn't target the obvious target, he might have to kill every enemy before finding the dark lord. But, again, the odds weren't 0 that the dark lord wasn't on the battlefield. The dark lord was a powerful source of morale, so killing him was the best move.
With that in mind, he returned night's end to his inventory and drew his enhanced steel rapier.