Poisoned Rationality

I stretched slowly, leaning against the Guild building.

“How long till noon?” Ariana asked, fanning herself lightly.

“A couple minutes,” Natalya answered. “Be patient.”

I scanned our surroundings, looking for any person who looked like they were approaching. It was the time of day when most adventurers had already set out on quests.

There was one person who was walking toward us. It was a young human man with metal armor and a large sword on his hip, with dusty brown hair and lightly tanned skin.

“Hello,” He said. “Are you the party I’m looking to join? My name is Tyler.”

“Yep!” Ariana exclaimed. “That’s us!”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I added.

“Same,” Tyler said.

“I’m Nyxandira, this is Ariana, and that’s Natalya,” I told him, pointing to each of us in turn. “We’re waiting on one other person.”

“Okay,” He nodded.

The four of us waited for a couple more minutes before the final person arrived.

“Hello!” The cerulean-haired girl exclaimed, jogging up to us. She had a red dress-like article of clothing that had a skirt-like bottom, but was also fitted more like a tunic or piece of adventuring gear. “I’m Sarya!”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Nyxandria, and these are Ariana, Natalya, and Tyler.”

“Cool!” Sarya grinned. “So, what are we doing today?”

“We’re going to go on a quest together,” Nat explained. “Test how we work together.”

“When do we get started?” Sarya asked.

“As soon as we get the quest,” I replied. “Which we can do now.”

The five of us went inside and to the quest board. After a short discussion, we decided on a simple, high-level copper rank one.

There was a camp of goblins that had appeared in the woods nearby. Our job was to go in and clear it out. We needed to bring back the ears as proof.

After we got the quest, we left for the woods, chatting as we walked. Tyler and Sarya were explaining what they could do.

“I’m a tank, mainly,” Tyler told us. Gesturing to the sword on his back, he continued, “I can take the blows from heavy-hitting enemies and strike back. The weakness with that is that all my armor slows me down, so I’m bad at fast targets or crowds.”

“Good to know,” I said. “I’m a fighter. I use these two blades and some magic to fight.” I showed them my miniswords before putting them away.

“What about you two?” Sarya asked Nat and Ariana. “I’ll go last.”

“I’m a mage,” Nat replied. “I’m immune to fire and explosions, and I can create them with magic. I’m good at both long-range and close-range stuff.”

“And I’m a rogue!” Ariana added. “I used poisons and stuff. And daggers. My main fighting style is being fast and poisoning my enemies.”

“What kinds of poison?” Tyler asked.

“Lots!” Ariana replied. “Paralytic, acidic, necrotic, I could go on.”

“That’s cool,” Sarya told her. “I’m a singer, fighter, and healer.”

“Singer?” Natalya asked.

“A singer!” Sarya repeated. “My family are singers. My mother Carmelita used to be the Skarrsinger, but now my sister Arsily is.”

“Skarrsinger…” I said. “I’ve heard of that before.”

“I bet you have,” Sarya told me. “The Skarrsinger is the queen of the Sirenadia.”

“You’re a princess, then?” Natalya asked.

“I suppose, yes,” Sarya replied. “But I don’t care about that very much. I fight with my curveclaws and my magic.” She held up both hands, one holding a weapon that looked like the blades of two sickles made of bone connected at the middle to form a circle, and the other glowing with soft red magic. “I also can heal stuff.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s start looking for the camp.” We had arrived at the woods and began our search.

We stayed together as we did so, although we were spread out a bit so as to cover more space.

“I think I found something,” Tyler spoke up after around ten minutes. “This is a goblin arrow, isn’t it?” He held up a small, crudely made arrow that was only the length of his forearm. The tip had a small bit of blood on it.

“Yep,” Nat said. “Can I see it?” Tyler handed the arrow to her, and she examined it closely before bringing it to her nose and sniffing it lightly. “The blood’s only a day old.”

“So it’s recent,” Sarya concluded. “Which means that the goblins are active in the area.”

I nodded. “Let’s keep moving. Watch for more signs and be careful of traps.”

Everyone nodded, and we kept walking. At one point, Ariana pulled out a small snack and ate. When I raised an eyebrow at her questioningly, she whispered, “I’m hungry,” and kept walking.

I smiled at her as my heart twinged. What is that about? I wondered.

<What’s what about?” Stella asked.

I’m not sure, I replied. It feels weird. Like, I know I have you, but my heart is trying to reach out to her as well.

<Oh…> Stella murmured.

I still love you! I assured her. I don’t know what’s going on. I thought that if you had your Fated One, you couldn’t love anyone else.

<I thought so too,> Stella hummed. <I’ll go ask someone about it. Be back soon.>

Love you, I said.

<Love you too.>

I focused back on the search and noticed a strange marking on a tree a couple of feet away. I stepped closer and examined it.

There were several odd symbols carved into the wood, as well as some kind of blue dye in a triangle.

“I found something!” I called out to the others. We all gathered around the tree.

“Goblins do mark territory,” Nat mumbled. “I’m not sure what the symbols or colors mean, though.”

I circled the tree and noticed some uneven dirt at the base. I leaned down and brushed it away to find a small wooden chest.

“There’s a chest here,” I said, pulling it out of the ground and opening it. Inside were more small arrows, a miniature bow, and a couple of small daggers. “With weapons in it.”

“This is a fully established camp, then?” Tyler asked. “Which means they probably have a chief and some hobgoblins.”

“We found more evidence of the goblins, but no leads to the camp’s location,” Nat grumbled. “We need to keep looking.”

“Let me try something,” Sarya said. She held a hand in the air, humming softly. A soft red glow pulsed with the sound, getting brighter and brighter.

Then it burst outward, sending a wave of red energy through the forest. As it passed, glowing markings appeared on the ground in the shape of tiny footprints. They were gathered around the tree with the chest, with a path leading away into the forest.

“They’re that way,” She grinned.

We followed the trail at a much swifter pace, avoiding the tripwires that were also highlighted by the magic.

Soon enough, I could hear the sounds of goblins a ways away. Nat, Ariana, and I slowed down.

“Why’re we slowing down?” Tyler asked.

“We can hear goblins up ahead,” Nat replied. “They’re a couple hundred feet away.”

“I cannot hear them,” Sarya said. “Do wendigo have good hearing?”

“We do,” I told her. “Although Ariana can hear even better than us.”

“After a minute more of walking slowly through the forest, we could see the camp. It was a large, vaguely circle-shaped ring of short wooden walls and haphazard wooden structures inside.

Swarming around the camp were hundreds of tiny green humanoid creatures, wearing dirty brown scraps of cloth, with some holding small swords and bows. In the center was a taller goblin, wearing a skull mask over its head and standing above a tall bubbling cauldron.

“They do have a chief,” I growled. “Shit. Okay, how do we start this?”

“I can explode the walls,” Nat suggested. “Then pull the flames back and we attack.”

“We can split,” Tyler said. “I go right, preferably with Ariana or Sarya as support, and the rest of you can go left.”

“I’ll go down the middle,” Sarya told us.

“Then you and I can go left,” I said to Nat.

“Sounds like a plan,” She replied.

We found a good spot to start from, and Nat prepared her fireball. She channeled the energy before throwing it at the wall.

It exploded on contact, destroying a huge section of the wall and sending scorched logs and little green bodies flying.

The goblins all looked over and spotted us rushing forward as the flames departed before yelling and beginning to charge toward us.