Final Preparations

“...and so that is how I came to be here with a greatly increased warband,” Elenara concluded, glancing at Grashok with restrained anxiety.

He regarded her quietly for a moment, absorbing the weight of what she’d done—and what she’d risked. Then he nodded, a slow, approving gesture. “You and the Goblin Elder have done well. Forethought in uncertain times marks the difference between survival and ruin.”

He turned to face her fully. “From the time they departed and the warband’s arrival, I calculate we must hold Ingunde until nightfall tomorrow. Is that right?”

Elenara confirmed it with a crisp nod.

“Very well.” He nodded once more, grimly resolute. “Come.” And without another word he strode past the eastern gate back into the town, Elenara following at his side.

They threaded along the wooden wall and through the town with Elenara at his side, the worn cobbles underfoot echoing with the growing murmur of preparation. His eyes roved over the scene—the movement, the labourers, the weapons stockpiled along the walls, the carts laden with quarrels, salted meat, and clay pots filled with pitch. Ingunde, once a merchant’s nest bloated with parchment and parsnips, was fast becoming a citadel of war.

Elenara walked half a pace behind him, her emerald dress swaying as she kept step, her gaze absorbing each detail with quiet calculation. The newly reinforced segments of the wall gleamed with fresh tar-soaked timber, while the older battlements bristled with scaffolding and hammering hands. Grashok’s people moved with a sense of urgency that pleased him—there was no slack in their limbs, no panic in their voices.

But on the southern side, Elenara slowed, frowning. One particular stretch of the wall—roughly thirty paces long—seemed neglected. Tools lay untouched nearby, timber stacked neatly but unused. The earth around the foundations was uneven, bare in spots. There was even a small hole, roughly a goblin’s width, boarded over with rotten planks.

She turned toward him, eyebrow raised. “That section. It hasn’t been reinforced,” she said quietly. “In fact... it looks deliberately weakened.”

Grashok glanced at the spot, then continued walking, tone casual. “Just a surprise for our little rodent friends,” he said.

Elenara narrowed her eyes but didn’t press further. Grashok rarely revealed his plays before they were ready, and his confidence in it radiated clear through the hum of Soulrend at his side. She noted, however, that the alleys leading to that section of the wall had become small fortresses in themselves—wooden spikes, stone chokepoints, barbed nets carefully coiled beside crates. Something was planned. Something that would not go well for the Ratkin.

Grashok grunted as they moved, not offering elaboration, his mind half in the present and half in the weave of the battlefield-to-be. Elenara glanced sideways at him, noting the set of his jaw and the flickering glint in his eyes. She knew his focus was elsewhere and let it pass.

They turned a final corner and walked up the slight slope toward the heart of the town—the temple and the old market square.

The temple loomed ahead, anchoring the far end of the plaza. It was a weathered relic, half‑choked in creeping vines, its stone doors partially ajar beneath a lintel cracked with age. The walls were uneven, crumbling in places, and draped in moss like the folds of an old shroud. Inside, Grashok knew, squat stone pillars rose no higher than his waist, each one carved with looping sigils and worn geometric notches—shallow indentations that reminded him of offering plates, though too precise, too crystalline in their angles. Ornate. Pointless. Curious in their oddness; he’d found nobody who knew a use for them.

Beyond it, the market square opened wide—a broad, cleared expanse that had once thrived with merchant tents and canvas‑draped stalls. They’d been cleared away hours earlier by the town’s officials, and now the square bristled with war.

At its centre stood Nyxie and Sylrith, their presence commanding amid a sea of warriors. Nyxie gestured sharply, her voice crisp as she directed a group of magic‑users toward the eastern exit. Sylrith, statuesque and severe in her black and silver leather, barked orders to her phalanx—shield‑bearing goblins forming tight ranks near the western approach, locking their shields and adjusting their footing as she paced before them.

Mayor Vos stood to the side, half turned from a conversation with a militia officer, his hands making nervous, fluttering shapes in the air as he spoke. The officer—stoic and broad‑chested—nodded dutifully, though his eyes flicked occasionally toward Sylrith even as a detachment of militia halberdiers marched past.

Grashok’s gaze swept the square. There, near a barrel and a makeshift bench on the temple side, sat Liraen, deep in conversation with another adventurer—likely one of the mercenaries who’d lingered in town hoping for coin or combat. Liraen’s long, dark hair shimmered in the early evening light, each twist flowing like liquid shadow as she gestured animatedly. Her lithe form reclined with casual grace, one boot propped upon the edge of the bench, her knee‑high leather gleaming. Grashok caught the hint of her voice even from here.

“That’s a hard quest trigger, yeah,” she said. “But you just have to grind reputation with the border sentinels first. The rest unlocks automatically.”

The adventurer blinked blankly, nodded as though he understood, then smiled awkwardly and scribbled something into a leather‑bound notebook.

Grashok shook his head, a faint amused snort escaping him. “Strange one,” he muttered.

Elenara smiled faintly but said nothing.

The market square throbbed with readiness. Shields locked into place, armour shifted, commands rang across the space, boots ground against gravel and packed earth. Grashok stood still for a moment, eyes sweeping across each face, each raised hand, each weapon held firm.

This was the stand he would lead—goblins, xvarts, the human militia, adventurers of every race, all bound to the same defence.

All of them looking to him.

All of them ready to hold.