Meadowbrook's militia are left totally blindsided by the warhorns sounding all around them, by the goblins streaming out of the grass, by the ladders thundering against the palisade walls. Their experienced leaders are out, who knows where, searching for a fugitive who's now storming their town — Kara's balance is good enough to run up the ladder rather than climb it properly, and she's first over the walls.
With a savage swing she cuts down the first militiaman to oppose her. A spear misses her by inches, and she spins, takes the man's throat with her chipped iron longsword. Behind her, a cry sounds, and another goes down, javelin through his chest, as her goblins reach the top of the wall. "Victory!" screams Jaika, rushing to Kara's side with a bent shortbow in hand.
"Victory!" calls Kara, as a tide of goblins sweeps away the last of the militia at the front of the town — those guarding the other sides fall even easier, vastly outnumbered by the goblin army. Once Maynier lifts the heavy wooden crossbar from the gate and throws it open, the town is theirs.
Well, mostly.
As a reward for their obedience and punishment for the town’s defiance, she allows the goblins to search all the houses for shiny trinkets, baubles, and geegaws, inspiring such a frenzy that it’s only her, Jaika, and Maynier standing outside the barricaded chapel — Lily left behind in the safety of the goblin’s camp.
“Stone wall, no good,” Jaika says, and Kara nods sagely.
“No good.”
The chapel’s by far the biggest building in the little hamlet — three storeys of stone brick and thick, reinforced doors. Most of Meadowbrook made it inside when the battle began, and now they’ve got an impromptu citadel to resist Kara’s army. She could order it stormed, sure — no doubt they’d win — but she has no idea who might come to avenge the town, and she wants to conserve her troops. Plus, surely there’s bonus XP for taking minimal losses?
“Alright,” she shouts, hands cupped either side of her mouth, “time to negotiate. Send someone out, you have my word they’ll be unharmed.”
Her only answer is a spear thrown from one of the second storey windows, which she dodges easily. Her sensitive ears make out one peasant chastising another over wasting valuable weaponry. “He’s right,” she says, to rub it in. “One less spear to oppose us when we storm your chapel. Would you really throw your lives away in doomed defiance?”
Stupidly, another spear flies out, and is just as easily dodged. “Are you fucking stupid?” Kara can’t keep herself from saying it.
As the silence drags on, she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Alright, this is going nowhere,” she says to her two lieutenants. “Ideas?”
“We have command of the town,” Maynier says. “Let us build a catapult in the square and level that place. Let it be their tomb.”
“Good pitch,” says Kara, “but I’d prefer to put them to work. We’ll need all the hands we can get expanding this place to fit the goblins.”
“And build your grand hall,” Jaika adds, which earns a nod from Maynier.
“Yes. You are right. We must take them alive… Start burning homes until they come out,” says the gorgeous blue orc.
Okay, that might just work. Kara forms the firebolt in her hand and juggles it palm to palm. “You can come out,” she calls, “while you still have a village to come out to. Or I can burn this place to the ground and bring that church down on your heads. What’s it going to be?”
With no sound but the distant birdcalls, Kara rolls her eyes and propels the flames at the closest thatch roof. It catches instantly, and the fire devours the building.
“Me ‘ome!” a voice shouts from within the chapel, but there’s no movement. Even as the fire leaps across the small gap to the neighbouring building the doors remain stubbornly closed.
“It’s that Priestess,” Kara says. “She’s wrangling them. We can’t negotiate or intimidate them while she’s in there, fortifying their spirits with her heathen religion.” The cogs turn as she considers the simple, rectangular building before her. “Alright,” she says, eyes on the belltower. “Maynier, round up the goblins. Dismantle the ladders and bundle the stiles together like a battering ram. Form up at the front, but keep your distance. I want them thinking we’re about to storm.”
“And you, Prophet?”
“You let me worry about me.”
Kara has to set some goblins to putting out the fires lest they consume the whole town, but the rest form up as instructed. As they do, all eyes naturally go to the front of the church — and not the back, where Kara’s got her nails dug into the mortar between the belltower’s bricks, hauling herself up with burning arms. It’s all going to be worth it, though, once she finds that Priestess and has a long chat with her about the various shortcomings of her religion.
Kara’s tri-coloured tail swishes as she finds a thickly-paned window, positions herself on the sill above, and, digging her claws in tight to the mortar, swings through feet first, praying that she’s not about to find herself on her ass in a room full of spears.
The thick window breaks with the polite crack of a clay bowl and, by Sayla’s grace, only slightly cuts her legs up as she rolls across dusty wooden planks. While not full of them, the room certainly contains spears, two to be exact, pointed towards her and wielded by men in rough clothes. In one motion she dodges a thrust from the bearded man while she cuts the other’s legs from beneath him. She has to overcorrect to hit him, though, and it makes her slow. She yowls as the the spear pierces through her thigh.
Weaponless but triumphant, the bearded man rushes to his friend on the ground. Kara has other priorities — she can hear people rustling below, talking, probably debating who should go check on the alarming racket upstairs.
Like magic, there’s a click as a hatch in the floor is unlocked. Kara throws herself over to the attic door, landing on it with all her weight just before it can pop open. With a screech of agony she yanks the spear out of her thigh muscle and shoves it through the handle to block any reinforcements.
Beardy has gotten his friend’s spear, though, and he’s running toward Kara furiously. She hisses, shoots a fireball from her hand. He only screams for an instant before he collapses to the ground, dead and smoking.
Thank fuck I had enough Mana for a fireball. Why do I have so much Mana?
Thoughtfully, she casts another fireball at the downed guard as he shouts, “wait! N- Aaah”.
All of a sudden I’m working with a full arsenal. Wonder if it has anything to do with how much I’ve gotten laid. Gotta test that theory.
Heart pounding, body buzzing with so much adrenaline that it drowns out the pain, Kara grabs a heavy wooden bookshelf from against the wall and topples it over the thumping door, settling the issue. No one’s getting up here until she’s ready for them.
She forms another firebolt, but doesn’t launch it — she presses the gathered fire against her pierced thigh, hisses in pain as the heat seals the wound and staunches the bleeding.
Taking in her surroundings for the first time, the cat finds herself in a messy, roughly round library tower, handmade shelves lining the walls, floor cluttered with heavy wooden storage chests. There’s a ladder in the centre of the room, leading higher into the tower.
The hatch is locked; it doesn’t matter. It collapses immediately beneath one of her firebolts. The room beyond is simple, spartan, befitting a boring Goddess of denial. It’s dominated by a central altar, little more than a blocky stone table with a statue of the covered-up Goddess. The room’s full of smoke, incense burned on the altar in an unassuming wooden holder. It makes the already dark space foggier, like some fetid pit in the earth.
The Priestess comes flying from behind her as Kara ascends the altar, dagger in hand. The cat’s quick, but not quick enough, thanks to her injury. Metal bites into her arm — a second later on the dodge and it would’ve been her chest.
Things are more complicated, here. She can’t just kill Elsa with a firebolt, as much as she might like to after that little maneuver. She’s after another convert.
Kara dances out of the way of Elsa’s next slash — now that she’s lost the element of surprise, the priestess is well-disadvantaged. Even injured Kara’s by far the better fighter. After the next clumsy lunge, she seizes Elsa’s wrist and twists, the dagger clattering to the floor. Her other hand closes around the wimple and yanks back viciously, pulling the fabric from around her head and exposing a mass of distractingly vibrant pink hair.
Elsa tries to shove Kara, get some space so she can scoop up the dagger, but she just flows with the momentum, spins around behind Elsa and pulls the wimple taut. It comes down over her head, fills her mouth, and Kara ties it tight as Elsa thrashes.
She kicks the priest in the back of the knee, sending her to the ground. With a pounce she falls on her, pins her tight. “Priestess,” she says, “I’d like to challenge you to a theological debate.”