The Arch Nemesis Appears

Vance

Young, handsome, and rich, Vance Rondel was of the very wealthy Rondel family of merchants, who made their money shipping to the old world back overseas. He sat in comfort at a table in the mid-scale Black Bull Restaurant, dining on steak and eggs for lunch, with a large helping of flaked demon chillis to give the protein some kick. The restaurant was packed with patrons, busy and loud. Located on a main street, it was a popular place for people of all kinds.

With Vance were two fellow recent graduates from the Royal Martial Academy, Feckle and Peckle, one the son of a carpenter, the other of a clerk. The two had met at the academy and bonded over their similar names, which always gave them a laugh. Feckle was well on his way to becoming a giant, half a head taller than most people and muscular from a youth spent working with his father on the farm and then pumping iron in the evenings, when any sane person would be resting. Skinny Peckle was the shortest of the trio and not much of an athlete. Or of anything else.

Vance had gone to the academy to train and become the best adventurer in the city, not to waste time with friends and socializing. But the two had somehow latched onto him, and Vance hadn’t minded the way they constantly looked up to him or spread the good word about him, so he’d let them stay.

Right now, Vance was blowing their minds as they ate.

Peckle gave Vance a dubious look. “Yellow goblins?”

Vance nodded with the arrogance of someone who had learned something new and enjoys the attention of being the one to share that knowledge with others, because it gives them a feeling of superiority. “Red and orange ones too.”

Feckle looked highly doubtful. “What? That’s not possible. Goblins are green.”

Leaning forward over the table, Vance was eager to explain, “Get this. All goblins start green when they’re born. But as they age, they eventually turn this ugly, muddy brown, then red, yellow, or orange.” He’d found all this out just the day before at one of his father’s many hosted dinners, in which he liked to rub shoulders with the right folk and foster connections. One of the attendees had been a woman from the old country, freshly arrived from overseas, who’d studied obscure monster history.

Peckle scoffed, “Oh, come on. They’re monsters, not bell peppers. If that were true, everyone would have seen them. I’ve never heard of any colour but green.”

Vance nodded, unbothered by the skepticism. He was prepared for it, expecting it, ready to blow it out of the water. Because he’d reacted the same way when he’d been told this news. Not that he’d admit that part. “That’s because, across the civilized world, we’re constantly culling their numbers. They live such short lives that they never get old enough to change colour. So, back on the continent of Lantara, with a hundred different kingdoms and thousands of years of settled history, they only know green goblins because they never have a chance to grow.”

Peckle pointed out, “You mean ripen.”

Feckle looked awkward as he thought and spoke at the same time, “Dead-eyed damsel. Does that mean they’re just slaughtering kids all the time?”

Vance rolled his eyes and then sneered. “Young monsters are still monsters. You eat lamb, don’t you? It’s baby sheep. Veal is baby cow.” He pointed down at his plate. “Eggs are fucking unborn birds and lizards. Would you have a problem with killing a baby dragon that wanted to eat you? Or a zombie trying to murder your ass if it was a dead toddler? Goblins are perfectly happy to kill you, no matter their colour or age.”

Feckle slowly nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

Vance continued, getting back on track, “But that’s Lantara. Here on Terrin, humans only rediscovered the continent about a hundred years ago. It’s been totally wild for ages. We only started settling the place recently. Our city’s what, less than thirty years old? And we spent most of that time fighting the elves, who apparently, in their nature-loving minds, didn’t regularly cull all goblins they come across the way we do. So the goblins here have been growing out of control for who knows how long. Probably tens of thousands of years.”

Peckle’s eyes widened. “Then there could be whole goblin civilizations out there somewhere.”

Vance groaned and gave a small shake of his head. “Don’t be stupid, Peckle. They’re goblins. They’re dumb as shit. They aren’t building cities and stuff. But there could be hordes of the creepy gobbers out there, breeding out of control like locusts. I’ll bet there’s a goblin plague just waiting to happen.”

Feckle was still doing a lot of thinking, which generally wasn’t his strong suit, but hadn’t stopped him from trying. He often gestured with his hands a lot as he spoke, “Hold on. Goblins alone are weak, right? I mean, the green ones. They’re just a joke; fighting one would be like fighting a zombie toddler. A whole bunch of little green goblins or a couple of hobs are a bronze-rank threat, right? Hobs are human-sized. A single bronze-rank adventurer might struggle with a dozen little ones or a couple of hobs, so you need to bring multiple adventurers once their numbers really start going up. And a big tribe, like a hundred or something, is a silver-rank threat.”

Peckle agreed, “Yeah, cuz of swarm tactics. A hundred of the gobbers rush you at the same time, a silver ranker won’t be able to hold them all off alone. But a party of silvers could. If they have a mage.” His voice turned bitter, “Cuz area spells are stupidly overpowered.” Peckle had wanted to be a magic user, but he’d turned out to have no talent for it, no potential, unable to grow his tiny little mana pool or do all the studying required to learn spells. Preferring a ranged ability, he’d turned to archery. He was mediocre, but better than the complete failure he’d been as a mage.

Feckle continued with a nod, “Right. A goblin chieftain is supposedly equal to a good bronze ranker or a silver ranker. A goblin lord who is still green is gold rank. But if so, what would a yellow goblin be? It’s gotta be stronger, right?”

Vance shrugged, but a sly smile tilted up one corner of his mouth. “Who knows? I’m sure as shepherd shit gonna find out.”

“Feckle continued, “But if they get stronger as they ripen—”

Vance cut him off, “Again, they’re goblins, not peppers.”

Peckle reasonably pointed out, “They sound a lot like peppers.”

Getting off track again, Feckle asked, “You think they’re spicy?”

Peckle looked thoughtful. “You want to eat a coloured goblin?”

Feckle rubbed his chin as he mulled it over, then shook his head. “…nah. I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff drunk, but I don’t think I could stomach that even if I was wasted. Nasty. But, I mean, they go from green to other colours. Like peppers. Peppers ripen. So, goblins ripen.”

Peckle slowly nodded, looking off in the distance. “Maybe they don’t get stronger as they ripen, though. Maybe they just look different.”

Feckle happily expanded on the idea. “Or maybe they change personality. Like yellow goblins are super cheerful all the time, and red ones are always angry.”

Peckle joined in, “And orange ones are just, like, both annoyed and amused all the time? Ornery oranges! Or what’s the word? Mercury?”

Vance snapped, “Mercurial, dumbass. Mercury is a liquid metal. And they don’t ripen!”

Peckle kept going, as if not hearing Vance’s annoyance, “Or maybe they get abilities or something. Like changing colour grants skills.”

Vance was trying to control his temper, as he often found himself when he was with these two idiots. “Monsters don’t level up. Only people do.”

Peckle rambled, “Yeah, but imagine if they did. Orange gobbers would obviously gain the ability to throw fireballs, right? And yellow would be healers or really good at creating light spells. What would red do?”

Feckle joked, “Maybe they hulk out, berserker style. Like, look at me, I’m a tiny red goblin. But not when I’m angry. You wouldn’t like it when I’m angry. And they get all big and shit, like three times the size, all muscle and teeth, and glowing eyes.” He mimicked a hulking goblin.

Peckle mimed using a spear on someone while hulking and raging. “And murder the shit out of you.”

They both laughed.

Vance shook his head in annoyed disappointment. “I’m surrounded by morons.”

Feckle protested, “Aw, come on. It could happen, right?”

Peckle wiped a tear out of his eye, then sobered. “Shit, we’re not foreshadowing ourselves into, like, a doomflag scenario, are we?”

Vance, who was smarter and better at everything than either of these two fools, carefully reasoned, “Think about it, stupid. If they could do that, become all stronger and stuff, and if a silly yellow goblin was stronger than a gold-rank adventurer or something, then wouldn’t the goblins be everywhere? Destroying villages and cities? It would take an army to fight their tribes. But that doesn’t happen. Because they’re just lame-ass goblins.”

Feckle soured. “Yeah, maybe. You don’t have to suck all the fun out of it.”

Peckle said to Feckle, “I wish I knew the spell for mage pics. If we come across any multi-colored goblins, we could take pics and amaze everyone.”

Feckle bobbed his head. “We still have to bring the ears back. We bring back red goblin ears, and people will be shocked.”

Vance countered, “No. We’ll bring back the heads. I don’t want any doubts about what we killed. We bring back a bag of heads that aren’t green, and someone at the adventurers guild will take a proper mage picture. We’ll be famous.” He grinned, loving the idea of fame. It would be his sooner, rather than later. He’d make sure of it.

Peckle wondered aloud, “Do we even know if there are goblins around here? If people been living here thirty years or whatever, why haven’t they seen many?”

Vance explained with slightly more tolerance now that the bantering had paused, “Because they spent most of that time fighting the stuck-up elves. Only had a few years of peace since. Goblins are probably smart enough to avoid the armies and big adventurer parties clearing the local area. But with the army disbanded and the elves dead, the goblins will be breeding like horny rabbits. They’ll be spreading out, claiming new territory. Goblins always do. We’ll see them soon enough.” He was sure of it. Hells, he was looking forward to it.

Feckle’s amused attitude faded, replaced with seriousness. “There are other things out there though. The region around the city is classified as silver rank with possible gold-rank threats at any time cuz of all the monsters out there. South of the city is totally off limits still, cuz elves and worse are still close. Their city was down that way before we sacked it, right? And they’re holding a grudge like only an elf can, even though it’s been a couple of years. We couldn’t hold the area even with the army and all the best adventurers. It’s totally wild land. Bronze rankers like us aren’t supposed to be going out there without an escort. We’re only supposed to go north, toward Babell.”

Vance was unimpressed, “That’s because the region between us and Babell is thick with farms and villages. It’s safe. Boring.”

Peckle pointed out, “They say it’s still dangerous. That’s why they still have patrols. Babel still has a small army, right?”

Vance waved the notion away. “We’re not going south. We’re not going to the boring north where everyone else is, and I don’t want to compete with everyone else to track down stray cows or do odd jobs. I want experience, I want a lot of experience, and I want it now. We’re going west.”

Feckle and Peckle shared a glance.

Feckle cautiously asked, “Is that any different than south?”

There was only one small and very poor village south of the city and a similar one to the west, a fragile buffer zone against elven intrusion because the tree-huggers still sent raiding parties despite being a broken and largely dead people who barely reproduced, so they couldn’t recover after their community was destroyed. They weren’t going to launch any fresh attacks on the human city, but their use of guerrilla warfare made life for anyone outside the urban sprawl a nightmare, and they murdered anyone they came across in the forest.

The king-sponsored adventurers’ guild had open quests for their ears, the same way that guilds back in Lantara had them on goblins and other low-level monsters. Except, here the elves were high-silver and gold-rank threats. And even if you didn’t fall victim to arrows and steel, the forest was filled with creatures that the newcomers building a city here only had the faintest ideas about. But enough people regularly died that everyone knew to stay as far from the forest as possible unless you were desperate, greedy beyond sense, or stupid. The vast numbers of immigrants pouring into the relatively new and fast-growing city did their best to make a life as close to the urban center as possible.

Vance answered, “The king’s trying to push the kingdom’s boundaries, building new villages farther away. That’s why the standing quests for adventurers to push farther and farther out.”

“Yeah, quests for silvers and golds, not us.”

Peckle soured, though he looked guilty about it. “We’re gonna get dead if we go out there.”

Vance mocked, “You might. I’m not. I’m only bronze because I just graduated the academy and joined the guild. They give everyone new the same bronze rank. But with all this gear, I’m silver, for sure.”

Feckle and Peckle looked like the rookie adventurers they were, wearing the most basic leather armour they could buy after graduating from the training academy. Feckle, who had trained to be a front-line warrior, also had a small wooden buckler on his right arm. A cheap single-bladed axe hung at his hip. Peckle was an archer. He wore the same leathers that his best friend did, with a basic longbow in hand. It was unstrung at the moment, so it was just a light, wooden pole more than anything. A quiver of cheap, non-magical arrows hung on his back.

In stark contrast, Vance wore the kind of armor, weapons, and items — all magically enhanced — that only one of the richer families in town could have afforded. His father was one of the more prominent merchants in town, happy to fund his son’s expensive career path for the prestige. Or, he had been, once Vance had risen to the top of the academy and then twice won the Bronze division for melee combat in the king’s bi-annual martial tournament. An unranked student beating a bunch of working adventurers, some with years of experience, even if they were “only” bronze rank, had been something of a sensation, one that Vance had gloried in. There had been a lot of talk about the genius, dual-wielding rogue and speculation of a very bright future ahead if he didn’t get himself killed in one of the most deadly careers around. Which is why Vance’s father had happily handed over bags of gold to outfit his son, and then told him not to get himself killed doing anything stupid and piss away the investment.

Merchants were in a constant battle for status and legitimacy against the noble class, who were prominent, even in the new city. Plenty of second and third sons or daughters not likely to inherit back in the old world had gladly set up in the new world. Sponsoring or raising famous adventurers had a long tradition amongst the nobles, and the head of the Rondel family would yet another trophy he could parade around to prove they were just as rich, powerful, and worthy as any so-called blue bloods.

To that end, Vance wore naturally supple and light, black wyvern leather armor enchanted for toughness and silence. Under the leather, there were feather-light plates of hardened steel on his forearms, thighs, and shins, and a line of overlapping steel plates ran up his spine. He wore a thin chainmail shirt that had been looted from one of the many fallen elves in the war, enchanted to be dark brown and also for silence. It was adamantium, stronger and lighter than steel, and only mithril was better. His enchanted light armour was better than any unenchanted full-plate set a poor knight would wear.

On his back was a matching set of daggers, one with a typically flat blade, the other with a slightly twisted and pointed rod, like a thick metal knitting needle, made heavy for parrying bigger blades as well as stabbing. The latter was called a rondel, just like Vance’s last name. Generations of his forebears were absolutely certain that this meant the family was descended from knights, as the rondel dagger had evolved from the earlier knightly dagger. It was much more likely that they were descended from a blacksmith or merchant who specialized in rondels, but that wasn’t as glamorous, so no one chose to believe that theory. The steel for both was enchanted to maintain the sharpness of the points and edges, as well as for slickness. Thrusting steel into a body was difficult, and the bloody flesh would suck at a blade, making it hard to pull out. But Vance’s weapons would slide right into and out of flesh with far less resistance than any unenchanted weapons would, like pushing a knife into mashed potatoes instead of steak. That helped him stab faster and more often.

And as he’d learned and proved, it didn’t matter how big or strong the opponent was if you hit first and a lot more often while being too fast to get hit in return. Speed was meta.

With a body blessed by genetics and then rigorously honed to god-like perfection since the age of six by private trainers, Vance could make the most of the tools he’d been given. He knew that if he’d had his current gear as a student, the gap between him and the other adventurers in training would have been even larger, and the martial tournament wouldn’t have been as close as it had been. He felt like a semi-divine being and was anxious to get out there and show the world what he was truly capable of.

Peckle, like Feckle, was from some nothing, middle-class family who didn’t have money for anything except sending their boy to train for the year in the hope that he might become a soldier or part of the watch or, as a last resort, at least an adventurer. It’s what you did with sons and daughters not smart or hard-working enough to make something better and safer out of themselves in school. Not for the first time, Peckle gave Vance’s very expensive gear a look of jealousy that he couldn’t entirely hide. Sullen words came out, likely before he could stop them, “Bully for you. Neither of us has any magical gear.”

Vance wasn’t bothered by that envy. He didn’t entirely see them as a real team despite agreeing to let them accompany him as a party for practical reasons. He saw it as more of him as the leader and biggest threat, and the other two were there to assist, like pawns. “But you have me. Stop whining like a little bitch. I’m not going to let any happy yellow gobbers smile you to death.”

Feckle was more diplomatic, his tone measured but also worried now that they were seriously on the verge of doing some real adventuring, “Vance, you’re awesome. Truly. You graduated top of our class, no doubt. Even without the gear, you’re badass. We’re not arguing that. But there’s a reason low-level adventurers like us aren’t pouring into the city, trying to open up the new lands anymore. They tried that — and died. “