Chapter 10 - Mountain Raid

Name: Taen Movorio

Level 39

Class: Necromancer

Name: Chris Ederson

Level 36

Class: Celestial Paladin

Name: Michael Noren

Level 41

Class: Juggernaut

“I wish Catem was here, he would have made for good talk.” Using his spear-sword as a walking staff, Chris trod onwards to get a better look at the pass. “Probably would have brought some booze too!”

Crushing up some leaves and lighting his pipe, he stopped at the edge of the drop off. Below them the cliff face rushed downwards and met an end upon a slow moving river, winding its way to the left and right.

It had taken them almost three days to get to the pass and were slightly behind schedule. Across the gorge trees lined the top, and below they could see a narrow path winding down the side of the adjacent cliff to meet a series of tethered boats at the river’s edge. Boats were also tethered on the opposite shore on the side where the earth born and village men waited in the trees.

“So that is where they’ll be waiting, if they’re indeed waiting at all,” said Taen pointing to the opposite tree line where the path led up into the forest. “It’s easy to spot people coming down or crossing the river, and they have a choke point up top for an easy ambush. I can see why they haven’t come to raid this village yet, it would be hard to get people en masse across the river with only a few small boats.”

Michael looked back over his shoulder and frowned at the group of huddled murmuring men. “We should wait until nightfall and go by ourselves. Taking these villagers with us would only give our position away and slow us down, we can give the signal for them to cross over when we make sure everything is clear. They’ve already slowed us down enough. We could have made great time if we knew the area ourselves.”

“This reminds me of a riddle,” Taen muttered thoughtfully, gazing down at the tethered boats below in the slowly drifting waters of the river between cliffs. “Here it goes. A man hops into a boat and pushes it out into a lake. The man then takes a coin out of his pocket and tosses it out into the lake. Does the lake’s water level fall, will it rise, or will it stay the same?”

Pausing, Michael and Chris glanced at each other. Then Chris shrugged. “That’s a stupid question, the water level would stay the same.”

Michael scoffed and shook his head adamantly. “No it would rise, you’re adding something to the lake so it would rise right?”

Chris frowned. “But you forget that the coin was displacing water when the man had it on the boat, so it would stay the same. That’s my guess.”

Taen smiled. “It would go down.”

Confused, Chris and Michael simultaneously asked: “How?”

Taen chuckled. “The coin is made of metal, which is more dense than the water molecules in the lake. Therefore it displaces less water when the coin is in the lake than it would when the coin is displacing water by weighing down the boat. The amount of water is miniscule, but the shoreline and water level would go down when the coin is flipped into the lake.”

“That’s tricky,” said Michael thoughtfully. “Didn’t see that one coming, I was sure it was one of the other two options.”

Chris however was a skeptic, though he kept it to himself and just enjoyed the cool mountain air as it swept by. Taking a long breath in, he began to think on how things used to be… and how different his life was now compared to the past.

***

Night soon fell upon the mountains. The moons peaked through the clouds every now and then as the three friends made their way down the steep path and out towards the waters edge, eyes glowing a light-blue. Looking down, if one of them was to fall it would have been a very quick death at the bottom. Within half an hour they had reached the bottom. Soft ripples sailed out across the water as the first of the boats was untethered and pushed off into the river. Silently they drifted, with only the faint sound of oars pushing against the water to fall upon their ears.

“They seemed relieved when we asked them to stay,” Michael whispered. “They must be pretty anxious about all of this.”

Nodding in agreement, the other two looked to the oncoming bank of the river. Upon arrival, the boat lightly brushed up against the sands and was again tethered to one of the stakes that had been placed by the locals. Despite the heavy armor both moved against the ground noiselessly with dark cloaks flowing out behind them, the three moved as shadows to make their ascent up the narrow path of the cliff face.

***

“Next time I want you to act like you enjoy it! Otherwise I’ll flog you like a dog!” The burly man named Siad spat upon the slave girl as he released his hold on her and threw a blanket forcefully in her direction. The other men laughed as he did so. “Cover yourself up and get to the pen!”

One of the other men commented while looking her over. “She will collect a nice sum when we get back to our homeland. These women from Shrubeth make good slaves, and bear many children!”

Pulling up his drawers and taking a knife Siad sat down by the fire and began to shave. “She is not for sale. She is mine. Konnen said so himself, giving her to me as my prize after the raid on her village.” He looked over at her with an evil grin, “I cut out her father’s heart in front of her and the rest of her family.”

The other man laughed. “You do love this job don’t you? How long have you been slaving?”

“It will have been nine years this next winter.”

“Impressive, I have only been slaving for two. So far upon these trips I find it most amusing when these people from Shrubeth see a black man for the first time!”

“Yes... we men from Voc’Tule come in all colors, it surprises me that people here in the western nations often have never seen anything but other white men. My village while growing up was of mixed races and I had neighbors of both colors on either side. As for slaving… It makes good money.” Siad replied with a shrug and a scratch of his head. “You get to do whatever you want while on the job, take whatever or whoever you want, and respect only your own laws. As long as you don’t piss off Konnen.”

“Have you been with Konnen all nine years?”

“No, we started working together three years ago. Now I am his right hand man.” Smiling at the other men surrounding the campfire and looking on to the next fire where another group of men laughed, Said began to chuckle. “I am able to ask favors of him because of it. Such as coming out here to the northern cliff-pass to do nothing but drink and be merry while the other groups do all the hard work! But I have definitely earned my position here. That’s for damn sure. And anyone who says otherwise will have a knife in their gut before they can twitch.”

Another young man in his early twenties pulled out some jewelry from a sack and briefly looked Siad’s way to comment before re-examining the prizes. “How many more of these villages are there? We have come to Shrubeth for three years now to raid, and not once have we had much resistance. This civil war gives us ample opportunity, but are we not running thin on options before running into more fortified or well protected towns?”

Siad spat into the fire and swore as he accidently cut himself while shaving. A trickle of blood dampened his cheek and he applied pressure to stop the flow. “There are four more villages left in this part of the country. Two of them are fortified and expecting us, one is probably being looted as we speak, and then...” he said, turning to the north, “There is the village beyond the cliff. That will come last before we board the ships and sail back to the motherland with our prizes.” He got up, stretched, and yawned loudly. “I’m going to go take a shit. I’ll be back in a short while. Don’t touch my ale or I’ll gut you and display your corpse on my share of loot for everyone else to see as a warning.”

With a turn of his head, Siad marched off into the dark leaving the other men to joke or drink amongst themselves.

It took him a couple minutes or more. After struggling to relieve himself, Siad finally stood up and began to drunkenly walk back to the camp. He was rather drunk, so the trip was perilous - even though the ground was even. The forest roots were numerous and so was the shrubbery. Tripping over his own feet - he stumbled and swore, getting back up he tried again to continue on. He was about to enter the encampment when he tripped a second time and fell into a large bush where a branch caught him by the adam's apple.

Teary eyed and unable to speak or even breath very well he lay there drunkenly in the bush, not ready to get up and be made fun of by his inferiors. He stayed there quietly thinking for a couple moments, wondering how long it would take for his voice to return. But then… behind him... he heard a twig snap.

To his right two pairs of boots slowly dragged to a stop. Siad looked up to see one of the sentries he had placed at the overwatch of the cliff. Wanting to swear and clock him in the face, Siad started to get up - but immediately stopped as he noticed a long trail of blood dripping down the legs and boots of the man, beginning to leave a puddle of blood not even three feet from where he lay.

Siad’s eyebrows raised and he looked up again. The sentry just stood there... glaring stupidly into the encampment with a blank expression, not moving a muscle. Confusion sparked within his mind, and his brows furrowed. This was rather strange behavior… what the hell was this man doing?

Then Siad noticed movement on other sides of the camp from his hidden position in the bushes, and to his immense bafflement - six of the sentries he’d posted at the cliff all appeared as well. They’d encircled the camp, and each of them had a blank expression on their face. Each of them held weapons.

Each one of them… looked sick.

The other fifty or so men began to notice as well. Some of them began to stand up or shout out in greeting drunkenly to their comrades, but no response came. This confused most of the onlookers - and a few of them grew frustrated with their shouts and hails growing louder. One of the men at the far end approached a friend of his, along the clearing’s edge, trying to see if something was wrong and asking where the other sentries were.

Meanwhile the slaves in the makeshift pen at the middle of the encampment just sat there silently, not knowing what to expect and finding the lack of replies, as well as the blank expressions, rather odd.

When the approaching man, who was being watched by many of his comrades, got closer to his friend... he suddenly stepped back as if in shock. Slowly he reached forward and touched his comrade’s shirt. With a swift motion tore the shirt open with both hands, and stood back. Gasps were heard from all around the encampment as they beheld a large and bloody gash across the man's chest and abdomen, some of his intestines were starting to sag out of a wound - and blood dripped slowly from the ravaged, opened body.

In concert, the zombified sentries flew into a rage with guttural coughs and screams, flinging themselves onto the nearest of the bandits using their weapons, fists, and even teeth. Within moments the camp was in chaos, and arrows flew out from the darkness in multiple directions. Screaming out in pain, men grappled with their once-upon-a-time brethren while others hacked and slashed away until the undead ceased to move no more and released their holds upon the victims.

The arrows stopped after a couple volleys, having now claimed over a dozen of the slaving group’s number. Two more were injured in their struggle with the undead, and all of them were terrified.

“They wouldn’t die, why wouldn’t they die?! I cut off his arm and stabbed him through the stomach and he still wouldn’t DIE!” one of the men screamed.

“They were already dead, you fool! Get your head together there are still more out there!”

Siad counted over thirty survivors from his hiding place as they formed a circle around the slave pen, bracing their shields or weapons and looking out into the dark. Cold sweat began to collect on their faces as the fires began to burn low. Siad noticed movement to his left as one of the girls, who’d been forgotten about when the attack began, got up and started to run into the forest as fast as she could.

One of the bandit slavers screamed out as he sprinted after the escaping girl. “You will stop or you will die by my hand!”

The other men called after him to come back, but he refused to listen as he continued to chase. As he gained ground on her, they reached the perimeter of the encampment. He reached out diving to grab her ankle, and as she tripped - an arrow lodged itself in his shoulder.

Screaming and swearing in pain, the man reeled back - grudgingly letting go of the slave. As he began to crawl back... there came, out from the darkness, an ominous laugh that began to rise. Slowly walking out from the forest came a tall hooded man wearing steel plate armor and wielding a large flanged mace - it was a beautiful weapon, made of materials Siad had never beheld before. Black laced designs decorated the white metal and it seemed to weigh nothing as the man slowly twirled it around with his fingers in one hand.

Still laughing with increasing ferocity, he swung the mace up over his head and with amazing speed brought it down upon the poor victim. The impact of the stroke caused the body to literally fly apart - splitting into pieces that scattered into different directions with dark-green earth mana simmering upon impact. As he looked up towards the group of cutthroats, he lifted his face to the firelight. Blue light glowed forth from his eyes amiddy the blood that now covered his handsome features. His mace dripped uncontrollably with crimson, swaying at his side, as he stood up to his full stature and called out.

Michael called out across the clearing. “[Human] Taen! Chris! Let's all play a game!”

Siad silently swore. “Blue glowing eyes… vampires? What the fuck are vampires doing here?”

From two other points across from Michael, Taen and Chris emerged from the darkness. Taen dual wielded his white and black laced longswords and stood calmly - straight faced - and silent, while Chris was spinning his spear-sword around his heavily armored body as if it were a new toy.

[English Dialect] “Bro these weapons are the shit! Can’t wait to test it out!” Chris gleefully called back.

Taen wasn’t as excited, and absentmindedly patted down his leather outfit to make sure he hadn’t left the spare potion he’d bought at the village back in the camp. [English Dialect] “You two seem to be having too much fun. We’re killing people here, I’m beginning to question the sanity of my friends.”

[English Dialect] “Come now Taen, they more than deserve this!” Michael replied with a widening smile. “Plus, you’re a fuck’n necromancer! Be happy you have the opportunity to claim these bastards as corpses!!!”

Siad had never heard this language before. Puzzled, he tried to lay there as still as humanly possible while watching the confrontation from his bush. Again: What were vampires, who were foreigners no less, doing here? He had not heard of vampires living this far north before, nor did they often travel far from their covens. This was... quite unusual...

Beginning to laugh, a bandit shouted out to the other defenders. [Human] “There are only three of them? I was worried for a moment!”

The nervousness died down. Many of the men began to visibly relax and laugh along with him, as they started to break ranks and advance towards the three Earthborn.

Michael did the same, taking a couple steps forward as he eagerly strode into the fight. [Human Dialect] “Slavers, do you have any last words before we send you to the afterlife?”

His taunts did not go unchallenged. The now-angry bandits sprung forward, swords drawn and yelling as they came..

Together, the three Earthborn converged upon their advancing enemy.

Michael summoned an earthen shell, engulfing his body in a protective hardened barrier and felt vigorous as the strength and endurance perks kicked in. He cleared the ten yards between his nearest three foes in half a second despite the cumbersome heavy armor he wore, and with a swing of his mace he sent another seismic slam spell channeled through his weapon into the poor bastards ahead of him. The mace collided with the first body, crushing it and literally sending it flying with dark-green earth magic radiating upon impact. The second man tried to strike out with a spear but glanced off a pauldron while Michael quickly brought about his mace for an upward stroke into the jaw and neck of the third, effectively dismembering it from the rest of the spine. The execution of the movements took only a second to complete, and the attacks looked like a blur to some of the less experienced fighters.

Laughing like a madman, he threw up a hand and summoned an iron maiden - two spiked slabs of stone erupted from the earth on either side of his victim and violently smashed the slaver who’d tried spearing him inbetween as they came together. It sent bone and flesh splattering with a loud sickly crunch, only causing Michael to laugh even harder to the horror of onlookers. Taking a quick look over at a clumped group of five enemies beginning to charge him, he used his alteration spell ‘Aspect of the Bull’ - that increased his defensive entire rating by 20% - and then stomped his right foot. He began to shimmer, and with a roar he used the juggernaut’s staple sacred art: ‘bulldoze’. A force shield enveloped his body and he kicked off like a rocket. As he picked up speed with emphasized momentum from the ability, he plowed through the clumped group of enemies at high speed to slam into ribs and shields with his mace and shoulder while their weapons were deflected off his shimmering form. Knocking each of them over simultaneously to scatter them like they were small children: he smashed one’s skull, trucking the thin copper helmet with it in a shower of blood and continued eagerly to pursue the next in line.

Taen took his group of four at once. The first of the four hoisted a spear back, yelled out a battle cry, and launched it in his direction while the other three came with swords drawn and charging in. He effortlessly etherealized into the void with a gravewalk spell for the split second that the spear would have made contact, and as it passed through he rematerialized to disarm the second man with a flick of his wrist. Ducking a swing from a bandit, with his right hand sword he cut off the legs below the knee of the third man and took his left sword to thrust it straight-armed through the skull of the fourth middle man - as if in a fencing position.

Immediately he roundhouse kicked the second man, breaking his neck as he simultaneously launched one of his swords at the first. The sword landed square through his target’s chest, and the man squealed out horror struck before being completely laid out by a pale soul bolt. Calmly and silently: Taen went to pick it up, yanking the sword out of the fresh corpse and slowly walking toward the next victim while two of the dead men he’d just killed began to rise up from the grave. The zombies jerked, twitched and screamed with hunger in their dead eyes before the two undead rushed in on the fray to the terror of their opponents.

“You have created a Zombie. Zombie is now registered as your minion.”

“You have created a Zombie. Zombie is now registered as your minion.”

And the sounds of metal on metal clashing only grew louder, along with the screams of the risen dead and dying; and the crazed laughter of Michael.

By that time, Chris had attained his own pile of corpses that slowly began to build around him. Launching himself into the air using his spear-sword as a pole vault, he flipped over the awestruck bandit in front of him while slashing out across the man’s back, turning mid air he brought it down and ran it through the next man’s chest, pinning him to the ground. The witnessing opponents simply couldn’t believe he was strong enough to launch himself that high with the armor he was using, with one of them openly leaving his jaw to hang open.

An axe came at Chris from the side, which he ducked, releasing his spear-sword and engaging the man in hand to axe combat. Years of training in martial arts took flight as he disarmed the man by breaking his wrist, knocking out his legs and then gouging the eyes as the man fell to the floor backwards. Taking his two daggers that were strapped to either leg, he stood up and hurled them at the next two oncoming enemies planting them in one’s stomach and another’s forehead. From the corner of his eye Chris caught one of the bandits about twenty yards away turn to the slaves in the pen, open the pen and then raise an axe above his head. The axe fell upon its intended target as the woman began to scream, but a brilliant white barrier of holy power wrapped around her in that instant and the blow bounced off. A minor amount of the damage was reflected back at the attacker who yelped as holy mana crept up his weapon and into his arm, but a subsequent flare of white flame from Chris across the battlefield shredded and burned the bandit’s body away in the next instant.

“You have gained XP.” rang a mechanical voice from within Chris’s mind.

Screams of the undead filled the air, drowning out the terror-filled cries of the living as more of Taen’s zombies rose to replace the ones that were cut down.

What the bandits had expected to be an easy win - had quickly turned into an absolutely brutal, one-sided bloodbath. The last couple stragglers were quickly finished off in violent, graphic deaths, until there was nothing but the rending of flesh as Taen’s numerous zombies tore away at the corpses.

[English Dialect] “Fuck that guy,” Chris muttered eyes aglow as he turned to see a blood-covered Michael grinning back at him. Behind them, in an explosion of pale death energy and body parts, Taen finished off one of the bandits who was playing dead - and calmly walked over to where the other two stood.

Chris gestured over to the man he’d just killed. “He was going to kill the people they had captured when he’d realized they were going to lose.”

Michael was rather cheery despite the blood plastered across his face, weapon and heavyset armor. “Yo! I gained a level!”

“As did I.” Taen put in with an apathetic shrug.

Chris looked at his own status page with an internal command, realizing he’d gone up one too. “Same. It’ll take a while to regain all the levels we lost from dying during Maltetious’ training, but at least we retained the skill of fighting that those two years built up.”

The small battlefield of the forest clearing was now littered with dozens of corpses. Firelight still flickered across the dead as well as the living and no one in the pens moved a muscle.

Siad, white faced and trembling, slowly backed out from where he was hiding. He dared not stay longer, and when he was out of sight from the encampment: he went from crawling to sprinting. Konnen must be told of this at once, he didn’t know why the vampires were helping these villagers... maybe they weren’t helping intentionally and just wanted to feed. Though it seemed as if they'd gone out of their way to avoid killing the villagers, and if anything: they’d even saved two of them. One when the girl had tried running off, and again when Siad’s henchmen tried to kill the captives in retribution.

“What rough luck,” he whispered as he continued on south towards where the next encampment was.

Back at the scene of battle, Michael let out a hardy laugh and twirled his mace about. [English Dialect] “I actually kind of like this job. This trial rocks!”

Giving him a disappointed and condescending look, Taen shook his head sadly. [English Dialect] “There is seriously something wrong with you.”

[English Dialect] “Don’t act like you didn’t like it! You even have all these dead people to build new pets with! Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting!? Do I have to say it again? You’re a friggin necromancer!!!” Michael scowled and folded his arms with a clank as his gauntlets came together. “Have you never wanted to find criminals and administer justice yourself? Have you never wanted to see someone die for all the terrible things they’ve done? This is empowering! They deserved to die, they killed and have brought grief to hundreds or thousands of people from what the people back at the village have told us. Yet you patronize me when I enjoy doing this, bringing a rightfully earned justice. JUSTICE I TELL YOU!!!”

“I must admit...” Chris chimed in. “I sort of agree with Michael here. Stop acting like such a goody-two-shoes Taen.”

Chris almost never sided with Michael during these conversations.

With a triumphant smirk, Michael turned to the prisoner’s pen consisting primarily of women and a few children, who cowered as far back as they could against the wooden stakes. A scream of frustration broke the silence, turning Michael around to see Chris looking down on the struggling girl who Michael had saved earlier. She’d taken a knife off one of the corpses, and had apparently tried to come stab Chris in the back.

She had miserably failed, and now Chris was holding her one, dagger-wielding hand in the air by her wrist as she tried to get away.

Chris glanced over at the other two with mild amounts of concern. [English Dialect] “What the hell?” Turning to the girl he blatantly frowned, and posed a question. [Human Dialect] “Why are you trying to stab me?”

The small blonde girl, who stood a little over five feet, looked to be about nineteen years of age. She wore what rags the bandits had left on her before the fight, and as she stood there - she starting to sob and shake. She struggled one last time, before she dropped the dagger to the ground and fell limp. She’d given up.

[Human Dialect] “Girl, answer me. For what reason are you trying to stab me?” Chris repeated, now visibly scowling and annoyed. “Stabbing people is bad, mmkay?”

Slowly, oh so slowly, he patted her on the head... and let go of her hand.

She looked up with mounting confusion, starting to regain her composure. With a teary eyed sob, she finally replied with a wavery voice. [Human Dialect] “You’re not going to eat us?”

For a moment, Chris looked bewildered... and then all three of the men started to hoot and howl and laugh uncontrollably. Catching himself on Taen, Chris tried to regain his own composure and after a few moments of struggling, he turned back to her.

Chris was certainly amused. “No, short stuff - we are not going to eat you. Why would you think that? Whatever gave you that idea?”

Sniffling, she stood up and exchanged a look with some of the others in the slave pen. “Well... your eyes are glowing blue, you are a vampire... are you not?”

“I am most certainly not!” Chris guffawed, “You ,ma’am, are a judgemental little shit-midget aren’t you? I’ll have you know I do not suck blood, nor do I eat people. And I very much enjoy tanning... and-and I enjoy long strolls along the beach during a summer day - thank you very much!”

Michael cut in with a big laugh and a smack on Chris’ back. “He also likes rainbows and ponies, along with the occasional sunflower to put in his hair!”

One of the children, a little boy of about five years old yelled out to them. “Then why are your eyes blue?”

Murmurs of agreement from the other adults followed, but no one openly challenged them.

Not wanting to get involved with an hour long story, Taen replied and cut to the chase. “Long story short, our eyes are blue because we are Earthborn and our bodies have been manipulated by a numen. Believe me or not, I don’t care, but we have to get back and let the other men know that we’re alright. If you would all come with us, then they’ll probably know what to do with you.”

Taen was obviously irritated, and his words were rather snappy.

Chris turned to Michael with upraised eyebrows and held up a hand over his mouth to contain his whisper. “Boy, is he in a bad mood.”

Michael just shook his head and nodded to one of the corpses nearby. “No… he’s just anxious to get started. He’s been waiting for this for a very long time, just you watch.”

It took a little convincing to get the women and children to follow the three Earthborn. For MORE than an hour, much to the amusement of Chris - and to the irritation of Taen, the captives refused to come with the Earthborn... believing them to be vampires. It was not until Taen uncharacteristically threatened to drag them by their hair, one by one, that they conceded to his wishes. Clothes were stripped off the dead men ,along with whatever blankets they could find, and given to the now-freed prisoners.

Taen had raised 16 of the more intact corpses as zombies over the battle, leaving the brutalized ones alone as they were for the most part useless to him without putting in time to repair the musculature. It was enough to work with... and Taen was very excited to get started using them to create his very own flesh golem. He’d been planning it out for a long time now, and had replicated what he wanted in Maltetious’ realm, but now that he was here… this time… he’d be able to keep it. He’d be able to grow it. To nurture it… this would be his minion of minions to come.

And he couldn’t wait.

After they’d crossed back over the river and up the cliff face, they came upon the encampment of village men who were huddled around small fires. As the men turned, one of the women cried out and ran sobbing as she embraced someone she knew.

The reunion was a happy one.

It turned out many of the women and children knew people from Catem’s village, and there were many emotional welcomes exchanged. Taen kept the undead far back and in the forest so that he’d not startle anyone, but his thoughts were with his new creation to come. He wanted to leave, to go start creating the masterpiece he’d been wanting…

So he was growing a little frustrated.

But after a time, the three were left to themselves... and they decided to head down to the river again. They let some of the men know that they intended to wash off all the blood from their clothes and bathe, then left the villagers to their reunions.