Upon entering the small bedchamber my senses were overwhelmed with the unique, repulsive residue of Spring influence. The magical stench clung to the bedding and child-sized clothing that had been strewn across the room and forgotten in their haste to leave ahead of our arrival. There was no mistaking that wherever the queen had fled to is where I would find the girl, the only issue was there had been no signs of where she had gone and what little reports we could get from surrounding peasants yielded no clues. It was as if this queen and the fae blessed child had vanished into the air, a magical feat that was surely beyond even the most magically talented human. Perhaps the child could have pulled off the feat of realm walking, though that would mean she would have to be incredibly adept at wielding her powers through her own exploration or somehow a powerful trainer had made their way to her and kept her fae magic quiet. Either way it was stupendously unlikely, especially since I severely doubted that a human child, even while fae blessed, could pull off such a feat on such short notice. Though that did beg the question of just where someone could go on such short notice so stealthily and not leaving behind obvious clues.

“Lady Nommu?”

I inwardly sighed at the seeress Emmi's continued refusal to call me commander despite everyone else under my command doing so without question. She felt entitled to call me whatever she wished based on the fact that she personally valued my noble family line ahead of my military achievements and the knowledge that the position of seeress of the Vanguards was not an easy one to fill. On top of that, she was an old family friend of my mother’s which made it difficult for me to want to bring down punishment on someone who had quite literally watched me toddle around as a child. I had tirelessly argued with her that if she truly wanted to show she valued my family's friendship and respected me as her superior that she would abide by the traditional honorifics, but all attempts thus far had fallen on intentionally deaf ears.

“Commander Nommu,” I corrected, a slight frown on my face.

“Isri,” she scolded with a roll of her eyes, “you are lucky that I call you a formal title at all in front of anyone else. Consider the usage of any title as an appropriate level of respect given our history. Now, we have more important matters to discuss than the silly idea of proper titles.”

She stood in the doorway to the bed chamber, her traditional dark navy seeress robes cinched tight around her waist with a gold cord, a golden charm the size of the palm of her hand depicting an open eye hung from the knot in the cord. She was in her battle dress and had not taken time yet to change into something more causal since we arrived to the castle. The robes made her appear opposing and powerful, there was little more worrying on the battlefield than when you caught sight of an enemy seer or seeress. They were particularly striking on her with her stark white hair and steely gray eyes, she looked like a ghost who has risen up from her fallen place on the battlefield to seek her revenge.

“I was informed that you wanted to speak with me about one of the chambers," I said.

“Yes, not this one,” she said while scanning the room with her eyes, “this one was obviously where the blessed child stayed, but I have quite thoroughly scanned the magical signature and there is nothing residual here to indicate where she had gone. There is something much more unique and curious down the hall.”

I followed her through the cramped hallway, it was certainly wide enough for a few people to walk down hand in hand, but I was much more accustomed to fae castles with their grand hallways and great ballrooms. It seemed that humans did not build with the grandiose in mind. It was strange to think that such a small castle and the tiny chunk of land it sat on seemed impressive to anyone. Stopping outside a door identical to the room I had just left, she gave me a look of caution before swinging the door open. Immediately upon it being cracked a foul magical stench spilled from inside the room, causing me to wrinkle my nose and want to spit to try to remove the taste it inspired upon my tongue. I had come across some unpleasant magical auras before, but this one was the first that truly wanted me to wretch.

“Terrible, is it not?” she asked with mirth. “I had only read about the description of the taste before and it is quite a bit worse than the scribe's explanation. Not to mention the feeling of filth upon my skin, it truly is a vile magical residue worthy of the type of creature that possess it. I believe we have stumbled upon the den of a true goblin.”

Surely I had heard her incorrectly, the fae had wiped out all traces of the goblin realm millennia ago, their kind too abhorant and nasty to be allowed to continue to exist. They were little more than a nasty footnote in books about the vile species that had been compassionately culled for the betterment of every realm.

“I did not want to believe it at first either,” the seeress remarked, peering into the open room. The room itself did not look like anyone had lived it in for some time, the blanket upon the bed even had a fine layer of dust over it from being untouched for so long. “However, the sensation closely matches what has been recorded and I have had the displeasure of being in the presence of a hobgoblin during my rounds of researching elusive magical creatures. Being related they evoke a similar feeling of disgust, though fortunately much less intense and cloying.”

“I do not think I even recall why they were culled, though that stench alone might be good enough for me.” Not wishing to entertain the slimy feeling it was causing in my mouth I uselessly held my breath and stepped forward to close the door, relieved at how instantaneously better the world felt with the magical taint contained.

“Plenty of reasons, their temperament and general level of class and civility matched their repulsive nature,” she explained, brushing the sleeves of her robes down like some of the stench still clung to the silky fabric. “From all written accounts they were perhaps the most underhanded and evil creatures ever known. Too cunning and intelligent to let them run their own course, they eventually would have caused some realm shaking disaster, likely to our own given the mutual hatred our respective kinds shared. The war was shift and decisive for a reason, we did not dance around and play fair like we might with our own kind, we knew they needed to be completely obliterated.”

“It seems we failed.” I ran my tongue against my teeth, trying to scrap the remaining horrifying flavor away, it truly had coated the inside of my mouth and sinuses from just a single breath in of the air exiting the room.

“If anyone were still alive from that point in history, heads would roll, certainly. Though, I would imagine that just one hanging around probably is not a terrible omen, if it has managed to survive thus far I do not think it is out for revenge or strong enough to pose a real threat. If it did, I imagine it would have stood its ground, the record of their abilities puts them relatively similar in power to a fae.”

“Then it surely would have run,” I scoffed, “one of equal power could not stand up to an entire army.”

“Perhaps.” She nodded her head and cast her eyes upon the door. “Though, something about the magical aura is intriguingly old, perhaps ancient. I have never heard of species living so long and by all written accounts their lifespan any stragglers should have died out long ago, but…” A flittering laugh escaped her lips and she shook her head like what she was saying was ridiculous. “Enough must have survived to preserve small familial line that has been prudent enough to stay far away from fae recognition. I cannot think of very many creatures who can boast that long of a lifespan and all of them that can are either extremely stupid or placid and I dare to think that fae scholars, even in ancient times were proficient enough in their research to have caught on if goblins were capable of such extreme longevity.”

“I am very glad you think it is a ridiculous idea, I would not want to try to comprehend the magical skill level someone could achieve if they decided to focus on their talents given so much lifespan. Still, I question what they were doing here if our presence is so overwhelming to the populace, either they never left this room or was able to shield much better than a majority of fae.”

“I would imagine that since the creature would need to keep a low profile at all times they would have learned fairly quickly to shield themselves to keep anyone from figuring out what they truly were. I would venture to guess we can only sense the residue here because this was the one place where they let their guard down. I have not worked up the courage yet to step into the room proper, but I believe that there is a sealing spell or two active in there to contain the magical residue when the door is closed so it did not seep out and alert anyone to what they were.”

“They must have been the one to alert the humans,” I said, piecing the events of the invasion together. “I do not think any of them would have be able to be any the wiser without someone of much more magical might around. No one in this realm seemed to take any notice of us on our march here until we chose to reveal ourselves.”

“Most certainly,” she agreed, “and I do not for a single moment think it is pure happenstance that we find a goblin residing in the same place as our fae blessed child. The two must be intertwined somehow, the creature would have recognized straight away the potential the girl carries and where it comes from. I think not only are we chasing this girl to prevent her from falling into the hands of Spring, but also to keep her from the dark clutches of a long forgotten enemy.”

“All the more reason to recover her quickly.” Perhaps it was farfetched to think that a single goblin, though a nasty creature, would pose any real threat to the whole of the Vanguards, but it was safest to assume the unknown enemy was the most dangerous.

“Of course, the girl might yet be salvageable and if she was talented enough for Spring to want her, perhaps she might have some purpose for us. First we just need some clues as to where they have fled to.”

“There are apparently strange arcane symbols in the basement that my troops feel I may be able to identify, perhaps it will be our first clue if you wish to join me.”

She nodded her head and motioned with her hand that she would follow me. “Arcane symbols are your expertise, but perhaps I may be able to fill in some gaps with my general knowledge if you can identify from what school of magic they are from.”

In the dungeon two soldiers were waiting on my arrival, snapping to attention as soon as I came into view. They looked tired, though they were doing their best to appear still fresh and alert. We had not stopped to camp on our journey over, hoping to prevent the Spring forces from getting their hands on her first. It had been a couple of days since any of us had gotten any meaningful rest, it was not typically the way I liked to run my soldiers, an army marches best on good food and adequate rest.

“This way, Commander,” the female of the two offered with a bow.

The soldier led us down into the very bowels of the dungeon where the air stank of stale, over grown mold that had flourished with no adequate ventilation. It was quite obvious that this part of the castle was not commonly inhabited and made fresh enough to be pleasant to exist in. A large iron door stood before me, a ridiculously sized iron padlock tossed to the floor beside it like they had been keeping some terrible, wild, and vicious animal locked safely behind the door. On the inside, the walls were lined with multitudes of black candles and wordlessly I extended a magical hand to light them all to illuminate the room. Despite the light filling the room, there was not much to see, the walls were entirely bare stone and the only point of interest in the room was a large arcane symbol carved into the stone of the floor.

“Demonic.” I instantly recognized the symbol, it was almost cliché in how common the particular arrangement of lines were used together.

The seeress bent over at the waist and narrowed her eyes at the floor, searching for any traces of lingering magical potential that might still reside within the stonework. Her magic extended and flooded the groves of the symbol, illuminating them with icy blue light and causing the symbol to hum as magic flooded its conduits.

“It was a portal,” she confirmed, “Not hard to extrapolate that it was to the demon realm. Humans and demons working together, an interesting mix, I wonder what a demon would want to do with the human realm. Demons are not the most potent magic wielders, but certainly leaps and bounds ahead of any human, and the realm holds nothing that they might want that I am aware of.”

“Not that I know of either,” I verified. “Demons tend to keep to themselves generally, even between their own subspecies. I do think we know where our missing girl went though, they must have destroyed the exit point on the other side to keep us from being able to immediately follow. Seems very odd that they would do so, surely they must know that a fae with any decent amount of power can realm walk without a need of magical crutches like a portal stone or ritual circle.”

I dug at the carving with the toe of my slipper and considered what might spark such illogical actions. If they did have the goblin with them, I was going to go with the assumption that they were the one running the show as the most magically potent of them and I would therefore be inclined to believe that they would know what fae were capable of. In fact, why would they use the portal at all? If a goblin could match a fae, they could travel without the need for such things. Something was not adding up just yet, but I would get to the bottom of it and succeed in my mission.

“Shall I go get prepared to realm walk?” the seeress asked.

“No, not yet, I think it best that we rest first. Demons should not stand much chance against us, though if they are in league with the goblin I want to take some time to fully understand what the dangers are before I lead my solders in there blind. Also we all could use good food and enough time to rest, I want us to be at our best when we cross the realm barrier. We are ahead of Spring, we have seen no signs of them following the trail yet.”

“Lovely,” she said with a relieved sigh, “I could use a hot bath and a long nap. Before I do though, I will set up my communication crystals and ask for whatever information on goblins and demons that is available in the citadel library to be transmitted to us.”

“It might take you some time to find a viable ley line to align your crystals with, we are in the most magically dead realm I have ever personally stepped foot in,” I reminded.

“Hmrph,” she snorted with annoyance, “I can make it happen, though the conduit back home with be unstable and slow. Perhaps do not expect a response today, maybe even tomorrow, this might delay us more than you intend if you are certain you want all the information before we march again.”

“I am certain,” I confirmed, “I will not march an army while blind.”

She nodded her head once, then bowed slightly at the waist, again not quite as much as she probably should. “If I may be dismissed then I will get started.”

“You are dismissed.”

“I wonder if they have decent food in this realm,” she muttered as she left the room, already undoing the knot on the cord around her waist to start getting out of her battle robe.

I glanced down to the arcane symbol again and pulled a the small piece of parchment I kept tucked under my belt for such times when a quick note needed to be taken. Concentrating on the symbol until it was burned into my mind, I then unfolded the parchment and set my focus on the blank surface, forcing the image of the arcane symbol in my mind to burn into the surface. With a small whiff of smoke the image smoldered into existence and after checking it against the carving for accuracy, I refolded the scrap and left the ritual chamber to find the finest room in the castle to claim for myself and recharge so I could plan the next move with a clear and rested mind.