Now the uncontested ruler of a herd of goblins, Anastacia used her power over them to have the critters gather materials they could use for a simple raft that would allow the party to use the steady flow of the river to avoid walking. Pretty much everyone outside of the necromancer carried a length of rope with them, so the main ingredient for a raft they were missing were logs. Luckily enough, the forest they had passed had plenty. Though the goblins were far too small for lumberjacks, an endless supply of them allowed for results in due time. Casualties piled up as they chipped away at the trunks with what tools they had and moved the already felled ones to the river, but their god’s orders were absolute and the deaths of many of their kind beyond irrelevant to the rest. While she couldn’t deny the effectiveness of the method and she didn’t have a long-term plan for her followers, Anastacia wasn’t fond of the steep cost – in fact, she would have probably rather walked had she known beforehand.

After learning what the necromancer could tell them, the party decided their quest to be completed and would embark as swiftly as possible. So, while the rest of the party assembled the raft, Emilia and Dammar handled the cooking, salvaging what was left of the pheasants and the rations they had with them for the journey. Returning to the fort for an attempt at a reentry was deemed too risky because of the quickly changing allegiance of the goblins, and they would simply explain the situation as they understood it when they returned to Valor.

While watching the campfire they were cooking on, Dammar noticed Anastacia watching over her followers closely and allowing a group of them to follow her everywhere. “Fond of your underlings, lass?” He asked.

“They’re alright, I’d like to teach them about self-preservation…” The necromancer commented a bit lamentingly.

“Mmm… Don’t forget that you need to get rid of them somehow. Can’t have them follow us all the way to Valor.” The dwarf pointed out as gently as he could.

Anastacia nodded. She was planning on leaving the crown behind and telling the goblins that the Sleeping God would look after them in her absence. She had no idea if that would work though, since she basically decapitated their previous god.

“We’ll figure something out.” Dammar reassured her.

Anastacia remembered the book she had found in the fort, dug it from her backpack and showed it to the dwarf. “Any idea what’s this about? There’s nothing written on the cover or on the pages so I figured it’s just an empty journal or something.”

Dammar took the book and inspected it. The covers were made from something resembling leather in texture but a keen observer could tell it wasn’t. The corners were covered in metallic plates that seemed like brass, probably to reduce wear. Dammar started flipping through the pages, aside from a half circle on the edge of each page they were all empty.

“There’s probably something more to this, but I’m afraid your book is beyond me.” He admitted and handed the book back. “Maybe show it to the scholar when we get our reward?”

“Think he’ll pay for it?” Anastacia wondered.

The dwarf laughed and returned to cooking. “They always do, girlie. They always do.”

Both the raft and the party’s meal were finished almost simultaneously. So, with their transport secured and only a quick shove away from being in the river, they sat down to eat. Gilbert’s disappointment over the rather charred state of the pheasants he had been forced to abandon on the fire earlier was visible and Anastacia thought she actually saw a tear roll down his cheek as he scraped the black crust off the meat.

Offering her condolences, the necromancer sat down next to him and started eating her portion. As she nibbled on the bird, the oversized crown wobbled uncomfortably on her head and she decided to take it off for the time being.

As soon as the crown was placed on a rock by Anastacia’s seat, all of the goblins tumbling and hopping around them stopped and turned towards their god.

“THE GOD ROCK HAS BIG HAT! GIRL OF UNDERGROUND A FALSE GOD!” One of them screeched, and like before, the scream spread like wildfire among the critters.

Slowly, Anastacia took the crown again and put it on her head, hoping to defuse the situation.

“FALSE GOD STOLE BIG HAT! KILL!” Another goblin screamed and caused the horde to turn on their previous god – even if that was exactly how she had become a god to them in the first place.

The thoroughly confused necromancer threw the crown at the goblin inciting the rest. The party once more had to grab what they could and retreat to the river.

On the way, Gilbert took charge of the situation. “Xamiliere! Anna! Hold them back while we push the rafts into the river!” He commanded.

The spriggan had been waiting for an excuse to attack the critters she hated and proceeded to stomp the ground before them. In seconds, thorny vines grew between her and the mass of goblins. Nearby trees sprang their roots from the ground, springing goblins high into the air.

It seemed to work well but a few stragglers managed to climb over the vines while they were busy strangling other goblins. Anastacia quickly dispatched them with her daggers, moving them in the air from goblin to goblin, striking them in the head or cutting it clean off. The number of these stragglers increased steadily and soon the two were forced to back down towards the river. Every now and then, Anastacia stopped to throw a dagger at a goblin and then explode the corpse into sharp shards of bone, taking out any nearby goblins and slowing them down slightly.

A few of the trees they passed also fell over on top of their pursuers as a last resort. When the pair had retreated far enough for the river to be in sight, the others had just pushed the raft off the bank and jumped on it.

To buy just a few more seconds, Anastacia stopped to concentrate on her surroundings. There were about 120 corpses within 50 meters of them and the number increased quickly as vines and roots snapped goblins in half. Pointing the palms of her hands towards the goblins, she told Xamiliere to run and jump on the raft – to which the spriggan hesitantly agreed. While concentrating, the necromancer closed one of her hands into a fist and pointed the other towards the sky. Suddenly every corpse within her range exploded at once and the sharp shards of bone flew high up into the air, creating a cloud of red mist that was blown towards her by the wind. With her eyes almost closed, Anastacia turned towards the rafts and ran as fast as she could.

Barely making it onto the raft with something that can only be called a tumble, she got to safety and was dragged away from the edge by Xamiliere while the others used long branches to push the raft away from the bank.

“What even just happened?” Emilia asked and kneeled next to Anastacia to see that she was still in one piece.

Furiously wiping the tiny droplets of blood off her face, the necromancer could only barely talk. “I’ll explain later, but I would like to pass out now, could you please make sure I don’t have any goblin bits in my hair?” She said and went limp from the thought of it alone. The adrenaline rush had made it possible for her to resist the urge to throw up or pass out while seeing so many bursting goblins, but as she calmed down it became overwhelming.

The goblins began to reach the river and threw anything they could at the party, even bits of other goblins wherever they happened to be at hand. This came to an end as the shards of bone began to fall down on them as a hail of razors, cutting them down by the hundreds. The lucky ones that didn’t get hit as badly, scattered and gave up on following the rafts along the river.

The party just watched at the absurd carnage in silence while the rafts drifted further away.

Maximillian looked at the unconscious necromancer that was lying on Xamiliere’s lap. “It was probably better that she wasn’t here for this, even I feel kind of bad after having seen that. But I must say, the girl is effective if nothing else.” He admitted.

Anastacia woke up to cold water being sprinkled on her face by Xamiliere.

“Time to wake up.” The spriggan smiled with her face uncomfortably close to the necromancer’s.

They had already drifted for quite a while and were once more in the middle of the forest, far away from the for and its goblins. Anastacia looked around and was relieved to see everyone in good health and high spirits after a successful escape.

While she had been out, a slight problem had surfaced with their raft in that it only barely supported the entire party, which meant that they weren’t getting out of it dry as water seeped up from between the logs. The others had graciously made sure that Anastacia’s gear, and more importantly, the things she had found in the fort weren’t in danger of getting wet. In return, the necromancer did the right thing and divided the jewels and trinkets she had looted between the members of the party. It was agreed that she should hold on to the book and keep whatever she managed to get for it, as the reward for the quest was plentiful on its own and the jewels would make sure everyone ended up well in the green.