Time was of the essence, so Bruce hadn’t had time to elaborate too much on Fort Dreadlake and what to find there, but he’d given Nathan a quick rundown on what he knew before the adventurer had saddled up. Or... knew was perhaps a bit strong, since in reality it was a smattering of tidbits that he’d either heard from travelers or read on some forum. And it hadn't been all that helpful.
The Fort Dreadlake area was a quest hub and also a starter area—as forum reports said that there were some players who had started there—so some of the quests were beginner-friendly. However, the difficulty ramped up quite fast the further north of the fort you got.
The inhabitants of the fort were a military order sworn to fight the undead, but Bruce hadn't been able to get as much detail as Nathan would have preferred. He didn’t know if they were affiliated with the local kingdom, if they reported to any lord, were part of a larger order, or anything like that. One would think this would be easy to find out if you just had a chat with them, but it seemed that a lot of players didn’t care about such things and therefore simply didn’t ask. The only thing that was certain was that they were big on respect and honor and such.
As for info on the actual undead, it was what you would expect. There were skeletons, zombies, and ghouls. Some had equipment, some didn’t. There were rumors of death knights and other horrors, but nothing solid.
Nathan didn’t worry about that, and he was confident he could get the information he wanted or needed as he got there, but there was still a thing he kept pondering as his borrowed horse slowly and steadily sauntered down the road. Why—or rather how—did the undead exist?
All information about the game world said that it didn’t have magic, but what were the undead if not magic? Goblins and other creatures you could easily explain, but animated bones defied all logical explanation. Did some magic exist after all? Or were there some other explanations?
Any other day, he would have thought up a couple of theories and prepared for each of them, but his head was still filled with lumberjacks steadily going about their business, and therefore, some lines of thinking flew out of his head and disappeared. Some returned a bit further down the road, but some didn’t. Or at least so he thought. No way to be sure, really. At time,s he closed his eyes and let the horse wander free as he focused inwards.
Soon enough, he reached a simple old watchtower standing all by itself by the side of a small wooden bridge. He knew about the tower beforehand, of course, as it guarded the only bridge over the rive,r which marked the boundary of The Last Valley. This was it. Beyond was some other land, with a name Nathan didn’t know. The only entrance and the only exit were right here. Well... more or less.
Everyone local knew there were other ways in and out in the wild, but you wouldn’t find them by following any roads. And they were dangerous. This one was safe. Normally, it was so safe that it was unmanned, but these were troublesome times, so Bruce had hired two NPCs to keep watch.
In Nathan’s head, the lumberjacks had finally taken some time off and instead allowed some drillers to do their worst. And their worst was pretty bad. It didn’t help that he also felt dizzy, no doubt due to the swaying movements of the horse.
Perhaps this was the reason why he didn’t notice anything amiss before he was almost on top of the small watchtower.
He was twenty yards away when he started to pay attention to that small nagging feeling that had saved his life so many times in the past. He tried to shake off the headache and focus. Something had triggered his sixth sense, and once he actively started to consider his surroundings, it was blatantly obvious what it was. There was no guard in the tower.
He reined in his horse as he passed beneath the tower and gave it a closer look. It was very minimalistic. Four pillars with a ladder in the middle leading up to the top, which was surrounded by half-walls with a gable roof on top. It was a simple tower, but it looked structurally sound despite its apparent age.
“Anybody up there?” Nathan was met with only silence.
He stood up in the saddle and looked around instead. The area surrounding the tower was clear of any obstructions in both directions parallel to the road, but to the north, the vegetation had been allowed to grow somewhat. Not a lot, but there were a couple of smaller trees and bushes around forty yards away that potentially could hide enemies. As he stared at the area, he thought he saw something move along the ground, behind some branches. He considered riding over, but if there actually were enemies there, he would be at a significant disadvantage if they had a prepared position. He could circle it and have a look from a different angle, or... he could get to higher ground. While the bushes and trees were adequate cover from ground level, that shouldn’t be the case a couple of floors up.
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As Nathan considered his options, he glanced back at the tower just as a small goblin dropped from the tower roof with a sharp piece of metal in its hand. He managed to throw up an arm to block the makeshift dagger, but was unable to block the rest of the goblin, who hit him in the chest. They both tumbled off the horse, which got spooked and took a couple of steps along the road.
Nathan managed to flip around so that the goblin landed at the bottom, but it didn’t seem to harm it in any way. In fact, it didn’t even seem to knock the wind out of it, as it cackled and let out a high scream. Worryingly, the scream was answered from the bushes.
He focused on the immediate problem first. He had managed to turn his block into wrist control of the knife hand of the would-be assassin, so he followed that up with two quick elbow strikes to the face before he unsheathed one of his own daggers and buried it in the goblin’s throat.
[Attack] You hit [Starving goblin] for 1 blunt damage (1[d2]).
[Attack] You hit [Starving goblin] for 1 blunt damage (1[d2]).
[Attack] You critically hit [Starving goblin] for 6 piercing damage (3[d4] x 2). It dies. You gain 20 XP.
Nathan jumped back to his feet and had just enough time to ready his mace before he was set upon by three other goblins —two [Starving goblin]s and one [Goblin warrior] from the look of it.
He wasn’t worried. If he’d had a shield, he was confident he could have won this fight without a scratch. Even without, he was past the point where he considered a couple of goblins a serious threat.
The lead goblin’s swing was easily deflected and answered with a strike that swept its legs. Nathan moved forward past the sprawling first attacker to interrupt the timing of the second one and managed to tag that one with a good strike as well. The third one was the warrior, and Nathan stepped backwards to avoid a jab from its spear. He feinted another swing towards the second attacker, but instead turned and finished off the first one, who had just managed to stand up.
The goblin warrior was not tricked, however, and managed to stab Nathan before he was able to turn back around. As Nathan felt the numbed feeling of the goblin spear entering his back, he forcefully turned around and grabbed it with his off hand, ripping it away from his attacker.
The unarmed warrior hesitated, and the remaining [Starving goblin] stepped up instead. It was quickly put down. Hard.
The warrior briefly considered and rejected to flee and instead charged wildly. It swiped with its claws, but Nathan – now enjoying a range advantage – avoided easily and hit the last goblin almost at will. The fight was quickly decided.
More alert now, Nathan was ready for any new attackers, but the area grew quiet once more. Following a hunch, he carefully stepped into the bushes from which the goblins had appeared. Sure enough, two dead villagers. Neither of them had any equipment or valuables on them, but one of them had bitemarks. The tracks in the area also indicated that at some point – probably quite recently – a much larger group of goblins had been here.
Nathan didn’t have time or interest in burying the two casualties. Instead, he carried them over to the tower and dumped them beside the dead goblins. They could be the problem for the next traveler to come through. He searched the goblins and found nothing of value worth keeping.
If it weren’t for the 110 XP he’d received for the fight, this would have been an utterly pointless encounter. But XP was better than nothing. Even though the goblins gave less XP than the kobolds from the mine, he didn’t have to share it with anyone out here. That made fights like this worthwhile even without any loot. But he was a long way from a new level, yet.
Perhaps it would be worth his time to track down the other goblins who’d camped here earlier? No, he was on a schedule, and there would probably be plenty of goblins around when he returned.
He looked around for his horse, which had continued to trot away during the fighting. It had stopped to grass some 200 yards further down the road in the right direction. As Nathan got close, it moved just a bit further away. It continued to do so for a while, but soon it came up against the river and stopped. The bridge over the river was narrow and somewhat perilous, and not something the horse felt like braving without a calm hand on its reins. But with some guidance, it stepped over willingly enough. Nathan remounted and continued his journey once he made it to the other side.
The rest of the trip went without any incidents. Nathan briefly stopped in the villages as he passed them to ensure they’d received the warning and that they took it seriously. The closest one had started to make preparations, while the one further away didn’t seem to care all that much. Perhaps with good reason, as it was closer to Fort Dreadlake than Nathan had been led to believe – just an hour away on foot – and was confident that the soldiers there would come to their aid should it be needed. The village was built around the crossroad leading to the fort, so they probably knew what to expect. Although... they couldn’t tell Nathan all that much about the fort as they preferred to keep their distance. Not his business either way.
The last bit of road went past in a flash despite leading into a mountain with a lot of twists and turns. It wasn’t until Nathan rounded the last turn that he was able to see his goal in front of him: Fort Dreadlake in all its glory.
