Book II: Chapter 11 – The Edge Has Teeth

My first reaction is to say no. This is a mistake. Obviously. We have known Bliss for all of six seconds, she is wearing Iron Jest colors, and every sane instinct I have is already waving a little red flag with teeth. 

Then I glance past her at the armored city guards and the invisible barrier humming faintly across the Timberline approach, and their warning settles back into place. Find a sponsor or remove yourselves. This might be our only chance to check things out without crawling back to the city empty-handed.

My indecision drifts through the bond, and the response is immediate enough to make the choice feel heavier instead of easier. Kit’s curiosity brushes against mine, sharp and eager, already leaning toward the forest and whatever trouble waits inside it. 

“I do not hate her,” Kit sends, which is not exactly reassurance coming from Kit. 

Raka’s caution follows, steady as a hand on my shoulder. 

“We watch them as much as the forest.” 

Perri worries in a soft, anxious pulse that makes the cold feel sharper. 

“But we do need a way in.” 

Enora simply watches Bliss with narrowed academic interest, which is no help at all.

Bliss sees the hesitation and eases back half a step, palms open in a gesture that looks almost harmless if I ignore the Iron Jest tabard, the four guild members behind her, and the fact that she appeared exactly when we needed someone to appear.

“You don’t need to join the Jest or nothing,” she says. “Just follow us in, watch our backs, and we’ll watch yours. Feel it out.”

Her eyes sweep over us again, finally settling on me with a look that’s not entirely innocent.

“I’m guessing you’re not all dressed up for nothing.”

I square my shoulders and let my size do some of the work for me. Bliss is confident, armed, and clearly comfortable in this field, but I still tower over her by a few feet.

“What’s the deal?” I ask. “I’m guessing you’re not offering this to us as charity.”

Bliss’s tail drifts upward. She catches it loosely in one hand, angling the little heart-shaped tip toward me like a pointer.

“There you are, big man,” she says, smile widening. “And nah, not charity. You’re unguilded, first-timers, and dressed so clean you don’t have a snowflake on you.”

She starts to walk, circling just enough to make the movement feel deliberate. Her tail gestures lazily as she talks, while her eyes linger on me, then on each member of my party in turn.

“We’re taking the risk, really,” Bliss says. “We take point as we skirt the edge of the pines, let you get a little feel for it. A little taste.”

Raka’s shoulders rise slightly.

Bliss pays it no mind.

“You watch our backs,” she continues, smile curling, “and we all get a nice little feel for each other.”

The air around Raka changes before she moves, that quiet wolfkin pressure building in the space between one breath and the next. Bliss feels it too. Her eyes flick toward Raka, bright with amusement, and that is exactly the wrong kind of spark to toss near dry tinder.

I step in front of Bliss before Raka can decide whether the challenge is worth answering.

“Say it,” I tell her.

Bliss’s gaze slides back to me. For a heartbeat, her smile turns coy.

“Direct and forceful,” she says. “I like it.”

Kit grins beside me, all sharp teeth and delighted trouble.

“Careful,” she says sweetly. “He gets like that when someone is circling what belongs to him.”

Bliss returns Kit’s remark with a pleased smile.

“Does he?” she asks. “I’ll remember that.”

Then she turns back to me, all business wrapped in velvet.

“We split the loot,” she says. “My crew gets two shares each. One share for each of you. And we collect any and all Rare drops. No questions. No fuss.”

The words land like coins being stacked on the wrong side of a scale.

Her smile brightens.

“Easy deal, yes?”

I weigh the alternative through the bond.

“Nothing about this is likely to be easy,” I send. “But our alternative is to stand here in the snow hoping something better comes along, or turn back to the city. Thoughts?”

Raka’s answer comes first, her grin felt more than seen through the bond.

“She is right,” Raka sends. “We are not all dressed up for nothing.”

Perri’s worry follows, soft but practical.

“We could wait for Davion to contact us, the one you mentioned,” she sends. “He said he would, right?”

My eyes meet Kit’s, looking for my First’s opinion, though I can already see it in the way she stands. I can feel it in the bond too, sharp and bright, her swagger rising to match Bliss’s provocation with effortless grace.

Kit smiles.

“Let’s show the Jest what we can do,” she sends, “and see who gets the last laugh.”

Lastly, my eyes turn to Enora as I give her a single nod.

Enora’s hat brim rises as she lifts her chin, meeting Bliss’s flare with a steel-purple gaze that is almost frightening. The Crystal Skull of the Spectral Choir stirs in the crook of her arm, warming with a rising melodic hum.

Her eyes flick to me with a tiny nod.

I turn back to Bliss.

“Deal,” I say. “We’ll follow your lead into the Timberline. We watch your backs, you watch ours. But we call when it’s time to leave.”

Then I let my eyes settle heavily on hers, letting my size and the weight of my bloodline do some of the talking. 

“But if this turns into a setup, Bliss, Rare drops will be the least of today’s worries.”

Her smile sharpens, and her tail drifts up as her hand comes to rest against my chest.

“No worries, big man,” she says. “I like you.”

It is all bravado and show.

But for some reason, the way she says it makes me believe her.

A moment later, my HUD flares in front of me.

[Raid Invitation sent by Bliss of the Iron Jest.]

[Accept?]

I accept, and the five of us slot under her party with a faint shimmer of system confirmation.

A title appears beside Bliss’s name.

[Raid Leader]

Something about seeing her marked as Raid Leader does not sit right. 

I glance over the rest of her crew as their levels and classes resolve in my view. Level 22s, mostly, with one Level 23 among them. Stronger than us, but not by so much that the gap feels impossible.

Bliss is a warlock.

The others sort themselves into familiar shapes as I look them over: two fighters, a rogue, and someone who very much does not look like they ended up on the right side of being a paladin.

Bliss, looking very pleased with herself, turns and taps the armored city official’s arm almost adoringly.

“They have a sponsor now,” she says. “Officially under the watchful eyes of the Jest and everything. We good to go in?”

She says it in a way that makes it clear she already knows he cannot say no.

The guard’s response is measured in every possible way.

I catch that cleanly.

“You may enter,” he says. “Watch yourselves in there.”

“This way to the fun, big man.”

Bliss turns and starts toward the Timberline, her crew falling in behind her.

A few strides later, my hand settles on her shoulder and brings her to a halt.

She stops abruptly, clearly taken aback by the contact. Behind her, the rest of her crew pauses too, their attention sharpening in a way that says they do not much like my hand being there.

Bliss lifts one hand, waving them down without looking back.

I do not remove mine until I have her attention.

“My name is Vincent,” I say. “This is Kit, Raka, Perri, and Enora.”

For a moment, I expect something snarky.

Instead, Bliss smiles and looks each of us over with surprising care, as if actually setting the names into place.

“A pleasure,” she says.

Then her grin returns, bright and wicked.

“Loot’s this way.”

The Timberline stretches before us, a massive forest crouched beneath the shadow of the Shivermaw Mountains. Pines rise thick and uneven across the snow, their dark branches heavy with frost, while snowbanks and ice-glazed deadfall break the ground into a maze of white drifts, black trunks, and hidden footing. It looks difficult to navigate before we even step beneath the first branches.

Bliss’s crew has clearly been here before.

They take point without needing to talk it through, and we fall in behind them as the shade of the first trees closes over us. Their two fighters move ahead in light armor, pushing through the snow with more confidence than care and making far more noise than I would like. Their rogue slips sideways into the trees and vanishes into the shadows so smoothly that even Kit’s ears twitch with interest.

That alone tells me the rogue is either very good, or very worth watching.

The dark paladin holds the middle ground, armor and shield firm, trudging through the snow with the steady weight of someone who expects trouble and intends to meet it face-first.

Bliss, meanwhile, hangs back with us comfortably.

As if walking into a city-sanctioned hunting ground with strangers at her back is just another morning beneath the pines.

Very quickly, I begin questioning what kind of party this actually is.

“On point.”

That is all I have to say.

Really, I barely need to say even that.

The reaction moves through the bond before the words finish leaving my mouth. Raka’s stance drops, her Starburst shield coming forward as she takes the lead. Then she draws Frostreaver for the first time with the clear intent to use it.

Frost clings to the axe-head at once, silver-white and hungry, wafting from the blade even here beneath the trees.

Raka grins wide and toothy, then stalks ahead through the snow.

“Lorica Noctis.” Kit’s voice is barely a whisper.

Shadow and smoke wisp over her as the Locket of Spectral Armor answers, wrapping her in midnight-dark protection. A breath later she moves forward along Raka’s path, light-footed in the wolfkin’s tracks, her daggers low and ready.

My head swivels slightly as Perri falls in behind me to the left. She lifts the hood of her Cloak of Radiance, and in the broken patches of sunlight between the trees, she nearly disappears into the snow-blind glare, pale and shimmering as winter light.

Enora sees the sudden shift in the party and finds her place behind me to the right. The Crystal Skull of the Spectral Choir rests neatly in the crook of her arm, its quiet hum threading beneath the wind through the pines.

Bliss looks over, eyebrows lifting. “Fancy.”

“Bliss,” I say.

She opens her mouth.

I cut off whatever nonsense is about to come out before it can start.

“What exactly are we doing here? Hunting, obviously. But what are we hunting? And why does this need a Raid?”

For once, Bliss does not answer with mirth.

Under the shadow of the trees, with her crew drifting ahead and the dark paladin holding the middle ground nearby, she gives me a straight answer.

“Ice goblins.”

“Ice goblins?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound so bad. What’s the catch?”

The answer does not come from Bliss.

It drifts back from the Dark Paladin, metallic and low from the depths of his helm.

“There are never a few,” he says. “A dozen at minimum. Colder than you expect. More cunning than you think. And that is before they start traveling with wolf packs, or winter—”

“Enough,” Bliss says.

She cuts him off with a glance, catching the way my attention has already started scanning every shadow, snowbank, and half-buried deadfall around us.

She knows what she agreed to.

We call when it is time to leave.

“That’s why it requires a Raid,” she says. “One point party, two more covering the flanks. Lil’ bastards move fast, and they love getting on your backside.”

I look toward the deeper trees, then back toward the rough edge of the forest where the field still shows through in broken flashes of white.

“So that is why we are skirting the edge,” I say, ignoring the obvious invitation for innuendo. “Only two groups?”

Bliss nods, quick and practical now.

“To reach the Frost Warrens, you have to actually go through the Timberline,” she says. “Goblins on all sides if you push too deep. We’re not doing that.”

Her smile returns, but it has less shine under the trees.

“We’re just picking scraps off the edge.”

A branch snaps up ahead, and the snow erupts with sudden movement.

Stormcast is in my hand in an instant, lightning already crawling along its length.

Raka bares her teeth, catching their scent on the wind before I see anything clearly.

Bliss turns toward us, nervous, maybe, though she wears it like excitement rather than fear. 

“No,” she says sharply. “Hold here. Don’t let them get in behind us.”

Eldritch energy blooms in Bliss’s hands. A black cloud coils around her grip, and from it she manifests Nightcarver, a massive two-handed violet blade that looks comically oversized in her hands until she moves it.

Then the joke dies.

The sinister weapon glides through the air like it weighs nothing.

The Dark Paladin is already smashing his way forward through brush and snowbank, forcing a path toward the unseen fray.

That is when it starts.

Gleeful howls. Manic cries. High, sharp voices shrieking from beyond the brush, too many to count cleanly through the trees.

Bliss turns back to me and winks.

“Don’t die, Vincent.”

Then she steps into a boiling cloud of black and violet energy.

For half a heartbeat, she is gone.

A second cloud tears open beyond the treeline, and Bliss steps out of it into the fight, Nightcarver already swinging.

A moment later, the Jauntgate snaps shut behind her.

Then we are alone. 

But we’re not.

Bliss’s crew is somewhere ahead of us, beyond the brush and snowbanks, already crashing into whatever waited under the pines.

But our little stretch of Timberline goes suddenly, sharply empty.

We hold formation, scanning the treeline ahead and the shadows behind us. Branches crack somewhere out of sight. Snow churns. Metal clashes against metal. A scream cuts through the trees, followed by gleeful howls and the high, manic cries of ice goblins enjoying themselves far too much.

My pulse hammers.

The bond tightens.

Raka crouches behind her shield, Frostreaver breathing cold in her hand. Kit vanishes a little deeper into the dark edges of the pines, smoke and shadow clinging to her Spectral Armor. Perri’s staff glows faintly at my left, soft light trapped beneath her hood. Enora’s skull hums at my right, the melody low and rising. 

I keep Stormcast ready, lightning crawling along its length.

Ahead of us, the fight rages unseen.

Behind us, the snow waits.

And every instinct I have says Bliss was right about one thing.

They like getting on your backside.

It begins with a flicker of yellow eyes between the pines.

Then another.

Then the snow moves.

Blue-pale bodies spill from behind deadfall and snowbanks, low to the ground, all claws, hooked spears, ice knives, and gnashing teeth. They do not charge in a line. They scatter, vanish, reappear, and rush from angles that make my eyes want to split apart trying to follow them.

Ice goblins.

The name hits my HUD a heartbeat before the first hooked spear snaps toward Raka’s shield.

Starburst slams forward.

The shield smashes into the its twisted face, and the impact cracks through the trees.

A second goblin leaps over the bleeding one, spear raised high, howling.

Raka shoves forward.

Savage.

Frostreaver flashes down in three silver-white arcs. The first takes the spear haft. The second takes the creature’s shoulder. The third paints black blood across the snow.

That creature falls too.

Another crawls over it.

Then another rushes around it.

The forest becomes a flurry of bodies, blades, teeth, and motion.

“So many,” I snap.

Kit is already moving, shadows clinging to her as she slips left, daggers low. An ice knife flashes for her ribs.

Echo Step. She vanishes as the ice knife cuts empty air.

Kit reappears behind the thing, both blades crossing in a violet-white flash.

Soulfire Veilstrike.

The goblin drops, twitching, but the one behind it throws a hook around her right ankle. Kit hisses as blood is drawn.

I thrust Stormcast forward.

Arc Lightning.

Blue-white current snaps through the hook, the goblin holding it, and the one climbing over its back. They jerk, shriek, and tumble smoking into the snow.

A third bursts through the gap as the lightning catches that one too, but not the fourth.

Fast. Too fast.

It hits my guard with claws and teeth, scrabbling up the shaft of Stormcast like a starving thing climbing a tree.

I drive my shoulder in and throw it off.

Raka catches it midair with Frostreaver.

The pieces hit the snow separately.

A flanker lunges from behind and bites into Raka’s calf, sharp teeth ripping through the yeti fur.

Behind me, Perri gasps, but her staff is already moving.

Light Barrier.

The burst of gold-white force slams into the creature and blasts it off Raka’s leg.

A goblin jumps from the branches above Perri, ice knife raised in both hands.

“Perri!”

She turns, staff lifting on instinct.

Sacred Flame.

Holy fire drops through the pine boughs and smashes the goblin out of the air. It lands burning, rolls once, and keeps crawling toward her with its teeth bared.

Perri freezes for half a breath.

Not from weakness.

From the horror of the charred thing still scrambling toward her.

They do not stop.

Enora’s skull hums sharp and discordant.

The Crystal Skull of the Spectral Choir wakes in the crook of her arm as she steps back, eyes tracking three goblins slipping between trunks to our right.

Wall of Bones.

A barricade of pale bone tears up through the snow, ribs and spines locking together just in time to cut them off.

For the moment.

“Vincent,” she says, voice tight.

“I see them!”

I do not see all of them.

That is the problem.

The forest keeps making more.

A hooked spear bites into my cloak. Kit is with me in a blink, Echo Step carrying her through the snow before Soulfire Veilstrike flashes violet-white across the goblin’s back. It drops, but even down, it keeps scrambling in the melee.

Another hook catches the edge of Raka’s shield. Two of the swarm pull together, shrieking with glee, trying to drag her open.

Raka plants one foot.

The snow gives.

Only an inch, but enough. She slides on hidden ice, forced into an open stance.

Three more bastards rush the gap.

Kit cuts one across the throat. Perri’s Light Barrier flashes up and catches a thrown ice knife meant for Enora’s face. I hammer the butt of Stormcast into a goblin’s chest and hear ribs crack.

Another hook catches my boot.

I stumble.

Thunderwave blasts the two nearest goblins back, snow and blue-pale bodies tumbling through the brush.

The bond flares hot with alarm.

Raka feels it and the whole air changes.

She rips her shield free, sending the swarm sprawling, throws her head back, and roars.

Alpha Roar.

The sound tears through the Timberline.

Snow drops from the branches in heavy clumps. The pines shudder. The goblins’ shrieks choke off all at once as yellow eyes snap toward her.

Every single one.

Raka stands in the center of the clearing, white fur bristling, shield forward, axe low, grin wide enough to make her look more monster than woman.

“Me,” she growls.

The swarm turns.

Hungrily.

Every blade, claw, hook, and tooth focuses on the same target.

They swarm her together.

Starburst catches the first wave as Lunar Bulwark flares in front of her, white light hardening across the shield line.

Raka slides back through the snow, boots carving trenches. Hooked spears scrape for the shield’s rim. Ice knives stab for her legs. Claws rake at the armor around her feet. Teeth snap and bite against the shield, gnashing hard enough to leave streaks of black saliva across the steel.

She holds.

Bleeding.

A flash of Healing Word snaps across her wounds, closing just enough torn flesh to keep her standing. 

Kit darts in from the left.

Soulfire Edge burns hot across her blades, and two goblin hands fall away from the shield, cut cleanly from their wrists.

Enora’s fear sharpens into focus as she tries to match our coordination.

The Crystal Skull of the Spectral Choir hums harder in her palms rising to a chorus.

Phantom Fire spills low across the snow, pale teal and purple, rushing around Raka’s boots instead of into her. It catches three goblins at the edge of the crush and drives them back shrieking, buying Raka half a breath.

Only half.

The swarm fills the gap again.

I raise Stormcast, lightning gathering along its length. 

Another one screams from behind me.

Too close.

I pivot.

Too late.

A hook catches the back of my cloak.

Then another.

They yank together, and my footing disappears.

Perri cries out, “Vincent!”

The bond jerks tight.

Raka cannot turn.

Kit is buried in motion.

Enora is casting.

The goblins behind me laugh as they claw into my armor and flesh, little hands and hooked blades dragging me down into the snow.

One of them bites into my shoulder.

Cold teeth.

Real pain.

Then Perri steps in. Her staff cracks across the goblin’s head with a sound like frozen pottery breaking.

Their grip loosens. I wrench free, spin, and pour a panicked amount of mana into the spell. 

Thunderwave.

Upcast.

The two goblins explode across the snow in a shower of black ichor.

For half a heartbeat, I meet Perri’s eyes.

She is trembling.

So am I.