《Dragon and Wolf: Two Brothers》Chapter 08 - Swamp Crawlers
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“Did you felt that?” asked Will.
It was been about four days since the incident with the kobolds and ogre tribe’s, and the two brothers have returned to their territory alongside their new underlings. And although there is still some bad sentiments between some of them peace still reigned under the suppressive aura of the brothers.
The two brothers that were preparing to go see their subjects suddenly stopped when a strange feeling came to them.
“I have” answered Lucas “What a strange feeling, is almost like…. almost like there is someone watching us”
And like if they had planned the brothers turned their faces at west at same time, with their eyes glowing the brothers tried to perceive who as the one peeping on them, but just as fast as the brother had turned the feeling of watching eyes on them vanished completely.
“Who was it? Had we already attract someone attention?” the Wolf grew a little nervous “Should we became worried?”
“No, I don’t think so. It was brief but I could tell that the person watching us held no malicious intentions” said the Dragon with a more calm tone “Besides it don’t make sense that someone would hold something against us”
Hearing his brother answer Will calmed down “You right, in the eleven days that we had been here the only big thing that we have done is the ogre tribe subjugation. It shouldn’t have gained the anger of someone capable of peeping on us”
“This person had a more curious feeling than anything” said Lucas as the two started to walk “Furthermore the person stopped the moment that we turned, which means that at least it doesn’t want to annoy us”
“We still should not lower our guards”
“Never said we should”
In the foot of the hill where the brothers lived a new tribe could be seen.
At first the kobolds and the others could only guess how their Lords territory looked like became a hot topic among them all with many possibilities sprouting in their minds, one more different than the other, with the only thing constant is that it would be a very good place.
The territory didn’t disappoint them.
Very tall trees with light green leaf at the top, beautiful flowers almost like a carpet could be seen around the forest floor, rare plants and herbs found one after the other, and a river with crystal clear water flowed at the side. And the more they walked in the brother territory the more rich it became, at the foot of the hill where the two brothers lived the place already looked like heavens to them. Although curious on how the top of the hill where the brother lived looked, the group content themselves with the foot of the hill with the top of it becoming a forbidden area to them.
Setting on the foot of the hill they started to build the new tribe where they all would live from there on.
Initially the kobold’s in Dahru tribe including the young and old numbered to more than five hundred members, and after the integration of captive kobolds of Kam tribe the number soared to almost one thousand members. Valerie ogre tribe held about three hundred and fifty members, less than half the number of kobolds but their physical powers make up for the number difference. The dwarfs led by Thalgrim of the three are the ones with less numbers having only about a hundred members, but as almost all of them regardless of age are very skilled crafters and blacksmiths their numbers seen about right.
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Building a village from scratch is something that normally would take some time and effort, but this task became something easy when put in the hand of this group.
Under the Lords orders the three groups started to work together in order to build the village, the kobolds with their big numbers acted as the main workers building most of things in the tribe. The ogres acted as the heavy lifters as with their strength the job of carrying the giant logs became something easy, and the dwarfs acted as secondary workers with most building things that needed a more skilled hand to build.
…
“They really had gone all out”
After the little watcher incident the two brothers walked down the hill to the place where the village without name was being built, village that from afar could already been seen. The free of magic creature’s territory of the brothers gave the group peace of mind to focus on their jobs at hand, and with only four days of earnest work the figure of a village could be already be seen.
“To think that only four days had gone by” the Dragon sighed.
The village was still looked crude, thing that was expected since it was built in only four days, but although simple looking this is a four days built village where about one thousand and five hundred people could live, this fact is something that really impressed the two brothers.
The presence of the approaching brothers was quickly noticed by the three leaders that in response quickly came to meet their Lords.
“Welcome Lords” Said all of them in unison.
“I’m seeing that things are going pretty well” stated Lucas with an approving nod to which the three smiled.
“Although I would say that wood is not the most resistant material to use in a construction” said Will as he looked at the tribe “Say, do you guys know how to make bricks?”
“Bricks?” asked Dahru.
“Yeah bricks, do you guys know?”
“I know” answered Thalgrim “The problem is that we wished to build something quick as the Lords had instructed, also I gave a look around the Lords territory and I haven’t seen much clay around”
“Well this is a problem” Will frowned though to make really resistant brick you need to use more than just clay, it is still the main core of the thing.
“I know a place where we could find enough clay” Valerie that was by the side gave a step forward “But it may be dangerous”
“Oh” Lucas raised an eyebrow is interest being picked.
Dark trees with their root coming out of the ground, muddy floor, pools of dirty water around the place, giant insects and poisonous plants, thick white fog hovering around plus the lack of sunlight gave the place a gloomy and cold atmosphere.
This place is know as Fog Dark Woods a swamp located in the east region of the brothers territory, the swamp as is name suggest has as distinct characteristic it’s dark wood trees and an all year around thick white fog, a fog that in some places it even became poisonous.
Puff
Puff
Puff
Jut in the border of the swamp you would start to hear some muffled sounds, walking a little closer to the source of the sounds you would find something similar to a construction site, where many kobolds are using a simple looking wood shovel to collect some type of gray mud, the gray mud would be put in nearby giant size wood pushcart that when full would be taken somewhere by a standing by ogre.
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…
“So, what do you think?” asked Will to his brother.
Following Valerie the brothers came to the region at east from their territory where a big gloomy swamp as in wait for them, the swamp was not too far from their territory which came as a surprise to the two as they had not notice this relative close swamp until now.
After coming to the place and finding that indeed the place had a vast amount of clay, giving their approval to Valerie received green light to bring some people to collect the clay in here, and with the dwarfs crafting a few simple tools the extraction work began in a fast pace.
This was three hours ago and now the brothers are sitting in a tall rock while they watched the operation ongoing in the swamp bellow.
“Think about what?” asked back Lucas.
“About this Valerie” the Wolf looked at the Wizard Ogre figure at the distance “She is been quite supportive to us”
“Yeah” the Dragon looked at the same direction “But I can understand her, I mean we kind forced her in into this, she is only making the best of the situation”
“Yeah, but is still felt strange to have so many people as our ‘underlings’. They know us for like four days, but even so they are already this supportive of rule” Will gave a long sigh that even released some steam “I tried to see some type of discontentment about all this but in the end I saw none, not even from the ogres”
The eldest brother gave one more look at the people working below “We are experiencing culture shock first-handed, to us it might see strange but to them is something very normal. Remember what Thalgrim said when he swore allegiance? , strength is everything in this place, if you don’t have it you will need to rely on someone that has, we are this someone”
“I thing you are right” shrugging we looked back at his brother “Talking about strength, the information that Valarie and Thalgrim gave us had put some light in that aspect”
In the four days that had pass the brothers had collect a lot of information from the leader figures of the three groups, the most important being the information about the power levels of this world. They had discovered that using an ancient measuring method the ones on this world arrange the power of the people in a scale of one to one hundred, and then further divided it into ten ranks.
“Well is good that we finally know how the powers are rank in this world” said Lucas “Though is kind sad that we don’t know where we are in this scale”
They had asked where in the power scale the two of them would stand, but to their surprise none of the leaders could give an exact answer to their question.
“Well it can’t blame on them, the difference in strength hinders the measurement” said Will “But from our earlier show of power Valerie had said that we probably over the level thirty-five”
According to Valerie and the others when trying to measure someone power the bigger the gap the hard is to accurately gauge the power, the brothers can gauge the power of the other very easily but the other can’t do the same, and unless they het a special magic item they would not be able to gauge the brother power.
Valerie herself said that she is a level seventeen almost a knight-rank, and going by the aura that the brothers give and the power that they had showed she had guessed that the they are probably above level thirty-five.
“For what she had said those above the seventy are considered legendary and many even doubt if they really exist or not” said the Dragon as he recalled the information “So those close to forty are already considered very rare”
“That is to say that we are strong, very strong, but still not the strongest” completed Willl.
One thing that Valerie had also said is considering that with Lucas being a true-dragon and Will ut lupus excelsis (high order wolf), the two probably have very high fighting powers it is to say that human of the same level as them would not be able to take them on, with only a big group or someone of a higher level would be able to fight them.
This of course is taking in account normal people, if the enemy is someone well equipped or with a strong ability things my turn different.
“Look out!”
“Kill that”
“Oooorghh”
Just as the brothers had finished talking as commotion started to arise from the workers below, looking at that direction the two could see some type of giant insect type magic creatures coming from inside swamp and attacking the workers collecting clay.
“Hmph!” huffing Valerie that was coordinating some ogres turned to the attacking and pointing her finger at their direction she cast spell.
[Magic Arrow]
From the tip of her fingers a small emerald magic circle appeared and from it six glowing green like arrows shot hitting the insects square on their hearts killing them instantly.
The two meters tall kobold warrior Rokdo also jumped into the fray, a centipede looking magic creature tried to attacking him with its pincers but with a sidestepped he avoided the incoming attack.
[Spear Thrust]
His spear pierced the beast belly making it shriek in pain he pulled his spear making dark green blood pour out of the wound, giving a little shake at his spear he dashed to another nearby creature.
…
Without the brother needing to act the attacking insect creatures have been swiftly dispatched.
“Is everyone alright?” asked Will as the brothers arrived.
“Some of the workers that had been caught by surprise got some injuries” answered Rokdo “But it was nothing major, a quick visit to elder Kam and they would be back in shape”
“What are those creatures?” asked Lucas to the wizard ogre.
“They are known as swamp-crawlers, and as their name suggest are a type of magic creature that live inside the swamp, and for some strange reasons are very aggressive in nature” explained Valerie “Their volatile temper is the reason that I said that it could be dangerous to come here”
Walking to one of the dead insects Will lowered his head to have a better look at it, at first the magic creatures look exactly like oversized insects, but if you get a little closer you would start to see purple/dark blue bulges all over their bodies “Sniff There is strange smell on these things, is like they are sick”
“Hmm” turning his head to the swamp the eyes of Lucas glowed for a moment before stopping “I can feel a strong magic source coming from inside the swamp where they had come. Do any of you know what it is?”
Valerie shook her head “No, many tried explore the swamp but the swamp-crawlers would always attack them before they could found anything”
“Beside further in the swamp the fog turn into poisonous mist” completed Rokdo.
“Are we going in a little swamp adventure?” a grin started to appear on Will face as he said that.
“I guess so” Lucas tuned to Valerie and Rokdo “You two are in command for now, work together to build a small camp outside the swamp in the meantime that we are out”
“Yes Lord”
Nodding at the two Lucas spread is wings and took off in the swamp direction his wolf brother running just below him as the two set out to explore the thick fogged swamp.
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