Sorin was still annoyed about being forced out of the Witch Wood without accomplishing any of their climbing goals. The soulprints they’d found, with the exception of Water Bond, had been low-value and not anything they wanted in their own builds rather than any of the highly sought-after ones they’d hoped to find. They hadn’t built up the anima reserves they’d been aiming for either.

  What he had gotten was a massive headache in the form of a riddle supposedly from the tower itself. Lacking any context at all, and the tower not being given to a conversation or even properly explaining itself in the first place, all Sorin could glean from the encounter was that, yes, something had definitely happened on Floor 100 of his old tower.

  Confirming that was less helpful than he’d hoped. He’d made some sort of oath, apparently, but without knowing what it was, it was pretty damn hard to fulfill it. Am I the champion of light? Am I helping the champion? Who knows! And what’s the way? And why is it becoming corrupted? Is that related to the encroaching void? Way to tell me absolutely nothing actionable, tower.

  He put that behind him for the moment. Later, when he’d taken care of the looming threats already plaguing his life, he’d worry about whatever those cryptic statements were supposed to mean. They’d left the forest behind and were transitioning from the grasslands to the dusty, barren foothills circling the mountains, home to various cave-dwelling tribes of goblinoids that they’d slaughter by the hundreds to farm anima from.

  The whole reason this was the backup plan was that the goblinoids sadly had almost no usable soulprints. It was generally accepted that monsters needed to live for a while to develop the crystallized anima pattern somewhere in their body that climbers later harvested. Goblins were as likely to kill each other as they were to band together against an outside threat, which made it a rare thing to find a soulprint among them.

  It's fine. That’s why God invented money. Bradford should get a decent sum from all those reagents we gathered, hopefully enough to get the team a good start on rank 3.

  Sorin had two soulprints of his own in his bag, but he was holding off on absorbing them until his soulspace was big enough for him to manually twist the anima in it into a restoration spell. Until then, he’d do without Speed Burst and Heat Resistance. Hopefully, they wouldn’t encounter anyone else from Nemari’s family before he could add that second one to his soulspace.

  They were about two hours into the foothills before they finally spotted what they’d been looking for: goblin tracks. “How many do you think?” Sorin asked Rue.

  “I couldn’t even guess.”

  “Try,” he insisted.

  “Well…” Rue stared at the mass of footprints. Several sets were deeper than the rest. One of the goblins had been wounded at some point and walked with a limp. Another was missing a few toes. The distinctions weren’t always there, but there were clues to be found. If nothing else, she could focus on a small section and just count footprints. Assuming the goblins weren’t walking in a circle, that would help her make a rough guess.

  A minute passed in silence. Nemari opened her mouth to say something, but Sorin held up a hand to stop her. Frowning, she settled back into place and watched. Rue’s eyes flickered about, more than once shooting over to Sorin, but he just stood silent.

  Finally, and probably with considerably more confidence than she felt, she said, “Twenty-three.”

  “Your reasoning?” Sorin prompted.

  Rue started pointing out some of the differences between tracks, mostly the size and depth, but also catching the goblin with the missing toes. Sorin didn’t disagree with her logic at all, but once she was done, he went back over to her work area and pointed out another six sets of tracks she’d missed. After explaining to her how to differentiate them from the others, he turned to the rest of the group.

  “So, twenty-nine is our best guess, with probably four of them being bigger hobgoblins. It’s not exactly an even fight, so we should go in with a plan if we go in at all.”

  “Assuming we can ambush them, a hard opening strike could halve their numbers,” Nemari said. “Goblins aren’t known for their toughness. A single firebolt or ice blade could kill one. Even if we didn’t get more than three seconds to fire into their ranks, as long as we’re accurate, that would go a long way toward evening things up.”

  “I’ve got Shadows now,” Rue added. “I could go for a kill shot on one of the hobgoblins before Nemari starts lighting them up.”

  “That’s risky,” Odric told her. “If one of them sees you, you’ll be too far away to heal. You could get swarmed and die before we reached you.”

  The ideas went back and forth, Sorin doing little except shooting down bad ones or pointing out potential snags. The plan rapidly came together, though. All that was left was finding the monsters and taking care of them.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  * * *

  The cave was a lot bigger than they’d planned for. In fact, there was a whole encampment set up in front of it, and way more than a few dozen goblins living there. Six hobgoblins were running the place, assuming there weren’t any out of sight, and they had close to fifty goblins visible.

  Sorin and his team had arrived just in time for dinner, judging by the five different firepits the goblins had set up to roast meat on. What exactly that meat had been originally was a mystery. It mostly looked like charcoal now. But since they weren’t here for a meal, Sorin ignored the blackened skewers other than to note potential goblin targets that could be shoved into the open flames.

  “That’s a lot more than we expected,” Rue whispered.

  They were crouched down low just behind the crown of a nearby hill, only their heads visible as they looked out at the goblin encampment. Nemari and Odric were below them, waiting their turn to check the place out.

  “How many?” Odric asked.

  “Sixty or so visible, including six hobgoblins, and that cave is big enough and deep enough that there could be another hundred in there,” Sorin reported.

  “Call it off and find a smaller group,” Nemari said.

  “Not just yet.”

  “Are you insane?” Rue whispered incredulously. “This was already a risk when we were just outnumbered eight to one? Now it’s more than double that, and you still want to go ahead?”

  “The goblins aren’t the problem,” Sorin said. “There could be two hundred and it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s the extra hobgoblins we need to account for now.”

  The goblins were short, weak creatures. The biggest of them were four feet tall and weighed sixty pounds at most. The more average ones were six inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter. Their skin tones ranged from green to yellow, with a rare few darkening toward brown, and their wide, ugly mouths were filled with too many crooked teeth for how much space there was. Lank, greasy hair sprouted from their heads, partially covering beady, black eyes and large, hooked noses.

  Not a single one of them was equipped with anything more threatening than a thick branch or a sharpened stick, and they probably didn’t even know what armor was—or shoes. Most of them were wearing ragged scraps of cloth around their midsections, at least. Small miracle the tower gives them that much. Almost makes me believe it has a shred of mercy in it after all.

  The hobgoblins were a different story. Each one was at least five and a half feet tall and close to two hundred pounds of solid muscle. Unlike the smaller goblins, they had short, coarse fur in shades of brown and orange covering their arms and chests. They also had real weapons, albeit nothing special. Sorin counted two swords, a mace, an axe, and two spears, all kept ready at hand.

  He could kill one in a fair fight. Hell, he could kill two. If he added his magic to the equation, three was reasonable. But after that, things got dicey. A decisive opening strike that took out the other three hobgoblins all at once wasn’t in the cards, but maybe he could make it work.

  “Rue, do you think you could kill a hob as your opener?” Sorin asked. “We’ll distract the mob with an opening salvo while you sneak up on it. You kill one and engage another, and I’ll grab the other four.”

  “Maybe, but what about the five dozen fucking goblins? It’s not like they’re going to just stand around.”

  “Nemari will cover you with artillery. Odric will rush down to join you once the fight starts.”

  “That leaves you by yourself against what I’d optimistically estimate to be thirty to one numbers,” Odric pointed out.

  “That’s fine,” Sorin said.

  “Insane,” Nemari muttered. “If we’re going to do this, we need a plan of retreat for when things go wrong.”

  “If the goblins overrun the hill, just keep going backward. They’re not that fast, Nemari. Maybe try to circle around so you don’t get too far away in case some other monster wanders into the fight.”

  “And what if the hobgoblins kill you? What’s the brilliant plan for that?”

  Sorin shrugged. “Run a lot faster, I guess. I don’t know what to tell you. Climbing is risky.”

  “And why can’t we just find a smaller group to challenge?”

  “Because this one is very much within our ability to defeat.”

  Taking a deep breath, Nemari just said, “Fine.”

  Their plan set, Rue snuck off around the back side of the hill. One hobgoblin was overseeing a group of ten scrawny goblins drilling with their vaguely spear-shaped sticks near the edge of their camp, making it the perfect target.

  “Alright, two minutes for her to get into position, then we go,” Sorin said. “Concentrate your fire on the left flank until Odric gets close, then shift to the right. I’ll cast on the run. Should get ten or twelve of the little ones before I reach the first hob.”

  The other two nodded, though they were clearly nervous. Strange. I figured Odric had some experience with goblins. He should know these things are even easier to kill than gremlins. Must just be the large numbers.

  Sorin’s only concern was that cave. With no way of knowing what else was lurking in there, it was entirely possible another dozen hobgoblins would spring out at them. If that happened, they really would be running for it, but he didn’t think it was likely. Six was already pushing it for the number of goblins they’d pressed into service.

  “Time,” he said softly. “Let’s give them hell.”

  Nemari’s wand was charged with three firebolts, which she promptly stood up and unleashed. They weren’t even halfway there before she had another one in the air. Sorin popped up next to her, his targets already chosen, and sent ice blades flying down the hill. He charged after them, a new salvo appearing each second.

  Goblins shrieked in panic, bloodied and burnt, and Sorin had just enough time to note Rue pouncing on her target with both blades. The hobgoblin didn’t go down in the first hit, but she wounded it badly enough that it couldn’t put up a fight when she snaked an arm around it from behind to slit its throat.

  One down, five to go.

  Sorin met the goblins at the outside edge of the camp, ice and steel leading the way. Monsters died each second, sending little pulses of anima into his soulspace, and a wild grin spread across his face. Then he was past the short, ugly things, and the first hobgoblin reared up in front of him. Its spear was already in position to ram into his gut, but it couldn’t keep up with Sorin as he darted past the tip and brought his own sword into play.

  Four to go.