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“Yah! I flee—for shame!” Lizard Priest howled with uncharacteristic vitriol as he slipped his huge form into the shadow of a pillar. “If the nosferatu are the kings of horror, then the fearsome nagas are the kings of the monsters!”
In spite of his self-censure, he had sustained more than passing injuries. He could endure them because of his great strength and his scales, which gave him an unparalleled ability to carry on in combat.
Satisfied that Lizard Priest’s injuries were not going to be a problem, Goblin Slayer said quietly, “It seemed to stop earlier. What did you do?”
“I did nothing. One hears that vampires have a number of weaknesses, however…”
“Don’t know much about that,” said High Elf Archer as she tied a bandage around Lizard Priest’s injuries, knotting it with an elegant motion and speaking as fast as she wrapped. “They’re supposed to be weak to sunlight, but you don’t get much of that in human temples.”
“Why?”
“Because then even the stupidest amateurs would come charging in, thinking they could take care of things, and get themselves bit!” Dwarf Shaman took a swig of his fire wine, shooting a dirty look out past the pillar as he spoke.
Even as zombies—perhaps especially then—the goblins’ main menace was in their numbers. However, they moved more slowly, more heavily, with less agility than in life. The vampire didn’t seem inclined to send the zombies flying at them. Perhaps it was something to do with his sense of aesthetics.
“You humans have the worst habits,” High Elf Archer said, patting the bandaged scales gently and chuckling as she flicked her ears. “You learn one little thing, you think you’ve got the truth of the whole world figured out.”
“I know that all too well,” Goblin Slayer said very seriously.
There they were, having a break and a little chat despite the looming army of the dead.
It’s often said that adventurers’ rest periods can be broken into two kinds, long rests and short ones. Depending on the moment and the situation, a rest might be as little as five minutes—and this was such a time.
This was a party that had always relied minimally on Minor Heal. To revive themselves, they drank stamina potions or snacked on the elven baked goods supplied by their archer.
“Gah. This elvish bread is edible as far as it goes, but it’s a little…light,” Dwarf Shaman griped. Somewhat lacking as an accompaniment for wine.” He picked a few crumbs out of his beard. “I could wish for a roast chicken!”
“Don’t like it? Then don’t eat it!” High Elf Archer said, licking the crumbs off her fingers and somehow still looking elegant at the same time. “I can’t help wishing the girl was here. She’s dealt with a vampire before.”
“Yes.” Goblin Slayer poured the contents of a small bottle through the slats of his visor, then nodded. “She told me the same. Although she wouldn’t speak much of it.” Next, he whispered, “She is a far more accomplished adventurer than me.” This was tinged with gladness as each person there could hear.
If Priestess had been with them at that moment…
“Our cleric is not given to bragging nor accustomed to effusive praise.” She would certainly have been pleased. Lizard Priest’s eyes spun merrily in his head. Then he stretched, twisting his neck to check how he was feeling after the first aid. “I do believe this occasion will become valuable experience.”
“That vampire’s the blamed problem!” said Dwarf Shaman, who was seated in a lotus posture as if meditating. He rested his chin on his fist and looked very perturbed. “Don’t think you are I are made to take out the likes of that shitkicker, Beard-cutter.” He took another long gulp of wine, then fixed Goblin Slayer’s helmet with a stare. “You can’t be tellin’ me you don’t know about vampires now. I won’t believe it!”
“I know of them,” Goblin Slayer replied with a nod. “But not much.”
“Well, that’s a relief!” High Elf Archer said, half in exasperation, half in amusement. “I was afraid you were just going to say”—and here she pitched her voice low—“I know it’s not a goblin.”
“Well, it isn’t,” came the very serious reply. High Elf Archer hid a snicker but not very well. One could only imagine how the vampire himself would have felt to hear it.
The impish imitation of his own voice was lost on Goblin Slayer but not the change in the party’s mood. He could tell that even as everyone remained vigilant, they were also relaxed and loose.
I’m grateful for that.
Normally—yes, it was becoming normal, he discovered—normally, it would not have been like this. The one who was sensitive to how everyone was feeling, who passed out food and water, who performed first aid, thought things through, and kept the conversation flowing was the cleric.
Each of them made up a bit of the slack, so the party was able to function as normal.
I couldn’t have done this.
If, in her absence, the unity of the party had declined, he would not have known what to do.
Rather than ponder the imponderable, Goblin Slayer turned his attention to the problem at hand—and a vampire was a substantial problem indeed.
“How many spells do you have left?”
“One or two, I’d say,” Dwarf Shaman answered.
Lizard Priest volunteered that it was the same for him, his long head shaking from side to side. “I dropped my fangs. I might be able to conjure a single Dragontooth Warrior at best.”
“What we need is some numbers,” High Elf Archer murmured. She patted her quiver, stocked with ragged arrows, and shrugged. “If we could have scattered some more, he might have stopped again.”
“But we don’t know why. And if we did, we couldn’t trust it,” Goblin Slayer said.
“That’s true,” High Elf Archer said honestly. She hadn’t been that serious about the remark. Arrows were her domain, and her role was as a ranger. She didn’t have much to contribute to strategy meetings like this one.
Goblin Slayer had an intuition that she must, then, have had some reason for speaking up now. Before he could say anything, though, she waved it away. “It’s okay. I’m doing all right. They’re goblin arrows, but at least I can shoot with them.”
“Good enough. Perhaps some fire powder,” Goblin Slayer mused. “You said it was weak to sunlight, after all.”
“You’re thinkin’ of bustin’ through the ceiling,” said Dwarf Shaman, catching on quickly. He ignored High Elf Archer’s scowl and looked up. The ceiling of the passageway was right above them, but that of the large room was much higher, so far above their heads that it was cloaked in darkness. He had, indeed, spent much time and gone a great distance digging with Tunnel.
Speaking with the experience of a dwarf, the intuition of a people as comfortable under the ground as above it, he said, “I couldn’t guarantee there’s open sky above this temple—and I’m not sure I could get there with what I’ve got left.”
“I see,” intoned Goblin Slayer. Perhaps only a dark elf could have challenged a dwarf when it came to opinions about matters subterranean. Goblin Slayer, for his part, trusted Dwarf Shaman’s judgment and didn’t ask any questions.
Instead, he said, “Perhaps we could burn the creature.”
“Burn him,” High Elf Archer repeated.
“The undead oughtta catch just fine,” said Dwarf Shaman. “They are dead, after all.”
“Meaning…that thing is a corpse?” Goblin Slayer asked. There was a flicker of inspiration, the light of the God of Knowledge, in his mind. “So it has no life.”
“S’pose yeh could say that, sure,” said Dwarf Shaman, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Yes, it was reasonable. No one would claim that thing was alive. “In fact, there was a Vampire Lord appeared in the capital ten-odd years ago, and they actually called it the No-Life King.”
In that case.
From behind his visor, Goblin Slayer looked around at his friends. His friends. He still wasn’t used to thinking of them like that.
It was a little bit disappointing that their priestess wasn’t here. But at the same time, it was a good thing. She was adventuring in the capital at that moment. A wonderful adventurer, far more than he could ever hope to be. He had dragged everyone else off on his own adventure, a fact Goblin Slayer found disquieting.
But if that’s the case…
“I have a plan,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
…then I have to win.