Chapter 19

Hostility

Torger and Graul climbed under their jackets and slept right there on the ground, not caring if they got attacked in the night, they were just too tired. They didn’t even bother to check their stamina. When they woke up in the morning they were shivering and the sun was trying to push light through the clouds but failing. The rain had stopped at some point in the night but they were shivering. Stats showed they were both at 50/100 health and 22/44 stamina- a message was in the center of their view. Cold damage slows regeneration.

They walked back to Calico and found Small Foot. He said “Good job men. As promised, your experience for the quest has been added to you and here are your magic back packs, medium quality, as promised. Each back pack will hold five times the storage space it should and for one fifth the weight.” He held out two back packs.

“There are seven of us, we’ll take the other five back to our village.” Graul kept an uncompromising and stern look on his face.

“Seven of you? No, the quest rewards go to those who complete the quest. The others did not complete it and therefore do not get the reward. That only makes sense.”

“No Small Foot! We work as a team! We all participated in killing the razorlings, we all get the reward.”

“That’s not how it works, Torger. Take your reward and go before you say something you’ll regret.”

Three dwarves walked in to Small Foot’s newly completed private house. He didn’t sleep with most of the other dwarves on the floor of the common house. Then men gruffly grabbed their bags and walked out. Before they stepped outside Torger said “This isn’t over Small Foot. We’ll claim our full reward!”

“You better hope that’s an empty threat Torger. You don’t want to make enemies with me.”

“Yeah. We’ll see.”

The men walked quickly and angrily all the way to the top of the pass that day, what should have been a day and a half day walk. Before they went to bed they looked around. They found Small Foot’s old village. One cave, presumably his, was decorated with nice paintings and figurines, abandoned there. The other caves had leaves scattered on the floor, probably for bedding, and nothing else. The tyrant was oppressing his dwarves, and it seemed his personal guard made sure no one complained about it.

They made it back Home two days later. Everyone greeted them and asked them how they survived. When soldiers see combat from relative safety behind the front lines they tend to exaggerate their role and what they saw and did. Those who have been in the thick of it usually say little about what they saw and did. Torger and Graul had little to say about how they survived and killed the razorlings, but insisted it was a team effort, the others had injured the lizards and the melee fighters finished them off. They would rather forget the nasty slaughter and the fierce determination it took to survive.

When they all calmed down and accepted they weren’t going to get battle details, Torger told them Small Foot may be mentally unstable. They didn’t get their promised reward and he may attack them. For this reason Torger spent five ability points expanding the village. The shield went from a two hundred foot diameter to a three hundred foot diameter. He saw it would take another five ability points and population of eleven to expand again. They had already met the population requirements, with Baybil’s five hunters and one farmer being residents. A bonus was that they could now charge taxes, not that they would.

Graul spent one Ability Point upgrading the shield strength. A message popped up.

Shield 150/150 Defense, Lightning 1, Fire 1

He spent another ability point on it and it went to 200/200 and added Ice 1.

Another Ability point brought it to 250/250

The next Ability point added Poison 1.

The fifth and final Ability point he added brought it to 300/300.

The next upgrade would cost two ability points and he would have a choice to add Fire 2, Ice 2, Lightning 2, or 100 to damage points to its strength.

Graul had two Ability points left, but didn’t want to spend them yet. After the battle with the razorlings, everyone else had gained one Ability point, but lost them when they died, along with any experience earned toward another ability point.

Graul wanted to see what his spent Ability points did for the village. “Antic, you’ve got the most health of all of us. Go off the property. I want to exclude you from our population, then you touch the shield and see what happens.”

“No way. Four level one black magic spells all at once. I might survive that, but just barely and it would hurt way too much.”

Arden said “I’ll try it.” But Jex told him no. She did have the idea to go outside and shoot an arrow at it. Everyone went out to see what would happen. She aimed just above the house and released an arrow. It flew straight and hit something hard, a shimmer they could barely see a second before. Lighting, fire, ice, and a green cloud of gas all shot out and hit her, nearly a hundred yards away from the invisible shield! Her body convulsed from the electric shock, her hair burned off her head, and frostbite set in at her fingertips. But the worst part was she coughed violently and immediately had the flu, complete with fever, chills, and the runs.

Everyone was in total shock for a few seconds, but Torger recovered enough to ask Arden to help her.

Arden carried her to the house and Rome said “I want to buy poison one! It gives someone a severe flu!”

Graul checked his shield strength and it had fallen to 289/300. An acceptable price to pay for finding out what his upgrades did. If Small Foot attacked, this would be useful.

The next morning Jex woke up completely recovered. She walked into the living room and said “Oww that suuucked! I’m sore this morning, but those four spells brought my health down to twenty-seven out of a hundred. I’m glad we recover every time we sleep.”

As impressive as the shield was, they needed to keep expanding. Torger and Graul left the others behind with instructions for them to keep adding stones to the second house. They walked along a brand new dirt path all the way to Small Hammer. It made the trip go a little faster. Baybil greeted them outside the city and led them in. “You guys are a day early. We’ll have your sword and arrows ready tomorrow. How did it go with the razorlings?”

“We killed them all.”

“You did? I mean yeah of course you did. Uh, well, congratulations.”

“Baybil, did you expect us to fail?”

“Oh no. Well maybe. You’ve got me in a pickle here. Let me just say congratulations and leave it at that.”

“We’re actually here to ask you about Small Foot. You said he’s your cousin. When we went to collect our reward he cheated us, gave us our experience and only two of the seven back packs. We had words about it. Harsh words. Do we need to worry about him attacking our village?”

“No he won’t attack you. But he’ll never pay you either. He wanted you to go on the quest and find the nest, maybe hurt a few of them razorlings, but he didn’t expect you to succeed. He sees you as expendable tools. I suggest you cut your losses and leave him alone. Nothing good ever comes out of stirring up a hornets’ nest.”

“Baybil we need those back packs for travel. We were counting on them, especially since the razorlings shredded our tents, sleeping bags, and all but one satchel.”

“Small Foot just won’t give them to you. Let it go. If you brought me some razorling feet, I’ll trade you for more satchels.”

Torger pulled out eight feet; all that would fit into the only remaining satchel at the battlefield. Baybil said “I’ll give you three satchels for those.”

Torger thought that was more than he would get. “What do you do with them?”

“We use the claws to make knives, but the real treasure is the sticky pads of their feet. That sticky gel goes on to the nets for our fisherman. If a fish touches it, it won’t escape.”

“There are no fish around here Baybil. Try again.”

“Not this time, but when the tyters change the land again we may be by a nice lake or river.”

“It has got to be tough having your land change every three years, even if you get to keep all your buildings.”

“I don’t know. That’s just the way it’s always been. I’m used to it. We all are. Maybe it’s not right, but we can’t change it so we accept it.”

Torger thought about how sad that was, that the tyters uprooted them, literally, every three years. He also thought about how sad life was for the dwarves at Calico, working long days to support a corrupt government. He realized there was nothing he could do, and that made him both angry and discouraged.

“We will also need more health and mana potions. We used them all fighting the razorlings.”

“Really going through supplies huh? You’re going to have to figure a way to make more money, you still owe me a lot.”

“I know, but we’re not able to collect enough stuff from our battles. We really needed those back packs to carry more stuff, like billik legs and razorling feet. Well also need more tents and sleeping bags. Do you happen to have a weaver here?”

“Actually, yes, I do. She’ll make some tents for people your size. The ones we have are dwarf size and wouldn’t work for you. Do you want winter or summer tents? Do you also want sleeping bags and bedding?”

“Everything yes. What’s that going to cost?”

“About three gold, for everything for the seven of you. Roc feathers aren’t easy to come by you know.”

“Roc feathers? What do you use them for? Could we bring you some?”

“They’re very valuable. They’ll go in your pillows and sleeping bags. We also use them as fletching for better quality arrows. We will have plenty of wool soon when we shear the sheep, but spider webs are hard to come by.”

“Wait, you’re going too fast. You have sheep here?”

“Yes, they graze in the foothills, but some rocs keep eating them. The wool will make nice winter tents and blankets for you. The spider webs are light yet strong, and make nice summer tents and blankets. You know all about those spiders, you killed a cave full of them.”

“Those spider webs we burned were valuable?”

“You burned them? A cave full would be enough to make more than ten tents. I would have given you two gold for that much of it. It’s easy enough to harvest, after all they’re only level two monsters, but they’re hard to find. All those spiders have respawned somewhere far away by now.”

“What do you mean they respawned? They’re alive again?”

“Yes. Of course. Everything but goblins, dwarves and elves respawn when they die, though usually hundreds of miles away if they possessed a cave, but nearby if they didn’t. Why do you think with all the rabbits, deer, and coyotes you’ve killed, there are still plenty of them roaming around here? You kill them today, they respawn three days later. As I said, goblins, dwarves and elves are the only exception. The tyters want to make sure they have a good hunt when they come here. It wouldn’t do for them to bring in dangerous prey, then that prey eats all the wildlife. The whole planet would be barren if that were the case. Of course prey killing prey has never happened before, so I don’t know if the spiders stayed dead or respawned far away.”

“When we came here we would have stayed dead if we died.”

“No, you would have respawned a week later. Small Foot lied to you. I don’t understand the whole respawn thing, not at all, but if we dwarves kill the prey then the tyters get mad that we ruined their hunt. But we’ve discovered monsters appearing on the other side of the mountain, cottols, that weren’t here when you first arrived. It’s like someone far away is killing them, and a week later, by my guess, they’re respawning on the back side of the mountains. It could become dangerous for us soon.”

Graul whistled. “Wow that’s a lot to take in. So my guess is that deer, rabbits, and coyotes are here for us to hunt, to grow stronger so the tyters have a challenge, and when other monsters come here, they have their own native animals to feast on as they get stronger.”

“Yeah, you got it’” answered Baybil.

Graul really didn’t get it, but he let it go. “We don’t know where the spiders are to get you the webbing, but maybe we could hunt some rocs for you to get the feathers. Do you know where they are?”

“You are not hunting rocs! They are way too dangerous for you. You’ll need to find other caves and bring me gold, and I’ll have your tents made soon enough. It’s getting late. Come inside and let’s have a mug of mead.”

The mead tasted delicious. All they’d had to drink for more than a month was water. They spent the night, and after lunch the next day they received their new sword and arrows. Graul slashed it through the air. It glowed red, and he felt a little heat coming off it. “Baybil, this sword is amazing! How do you make it?”

“I don’t. The blacksmith does. He’s really good with metal, but lousy when it comes to infusing magic.”

Graul saw there was the glowing red stone embedded into the blade just above the pommel, and Baybil told him that’s the magic source inside the stone that added the fire damage. The golf ball sized stone made the iron blade a little off balance, but the fire damage should more than make up for it. He thought Baybil was being harsh when he said Hestaff was lousy with infusing magic. “What do you mean? This will add fire one damage to a strike won’t it? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing wrong with it, but fire, ice, and lightning one is all he can do. You’d piss your pants if you saw a sword infused with fire two, and I once saw an axe infused with fire three. I doubt you’ll ever see one of those. Only the elves can make them.”

Graul had no idea how powerful fire three was, or even fire two, but he drooled at the thought of killing a razorling with a single strike, and he might be able to with an axe like that. “Do you know where we could find something like that?”

“I don’t. I know that Small Foot has a blacksmith that is equal to mine, but not more skilled at infusing magic. I’ve run into other tribes over the years that can do it, but they won’t share the secret with anyone else.”

“We met some dwarves near Yuma. Maybe they could do it.”

“Perhaps. But I can almost guarantee they won’t give you credit like I am. If you go, be sure to bring a sack of gold with you, because a sword with fire two, or something equivalent, will cost at least six gold, maybe as high as ten.”

Torger muttered to himself “What about a wheelbarrow full of silver?”

No one heard him, but dark ideas began creeping into his mind.

Chapter 20

Attacked!

Torger and Graul left with three quivers full of arrows- one with stone heads, one with ice one magic, and one of normal iron. They also had a dozen low level mana potions and twenty low level health potions. All that combined with their on-order camping gear brought their debt up to an even twenty gold. Baybil insisted they would not be given any more credit than that. Now the question was where to find a level two cave to conquer and collect some treasure.

That night the entire group sat in the house discussing their financial crisis. Even with their current upgrades, they were still weak and they knew it. Everyone kept coming up with ideas of where they might find a cave, and the idea of killing the troll was discussed a few times, but Torger sat there silently, not really listening. He kept thinking about all the silver that Small Foot was hoarding for himself. Torger led him to where the silver was, and Torger killed the razorlings. He should be getting half the silver ore. They needed it more than Small Foot did. Besides, Small Foot held him prisoner, and oppressed his own people. Small Foot needed to be dethroned. But how?

Torger felt guilty about launching a surprise attack on the dwarves, and he knew they had no chance of winning, but he wanted it so bad. Greed and revenge were creeping into his heart and he couldn’t control it. If he had told his friends they would have counseled him and calmed him down, but he didn’t say a word because he was afraid they would no longer respect him as a leader. A leader had to be decisive, and he had to be right all the time, or dissention would arise.

As the conversation continued and Torger’s thoughts festered, they all heard a loud screech outside. They ran to the backyard, but there was nothing there to see. They looked around, waiting to hear it again. The dwarf farmer ran into them, clearly frightened for his life. Antic asked him what was wrong, and then they all heard the crash.

The dome shield crackled with lightning, and a loud crack like glass shattering could be heard. They heard the screech again and looked up. A roc had flown into the top of the shield. The lightning one made it convulse, the fire one burned off some of its feathers, and the ice one and poison one caused additional damage. But the bird was huge. It tumbled to the ground and struck the dome with its powerful beak. It suffered more damage, and the shield cracked again. Another screech was heard overhead, and they looked up to see two more rocs circling above them.

“Get your weapons! Everyone, go inside and arm yourselves!”

Torger’s yell caused everyone to shake off the shock of seeing a van-sized roc recovering next to the cracked dome shield. He checked into the shield and it showed a strength of 91/300. That thing was powerful! Torger ran at it and felt the tingling sensation he always felt when he entered or exited his dome shield. He took the two handed steel sword and sliced hard at its neck. It moved its head, but still got struck on the hard beak. The steel sword didn’t penetrate the beak. It left a deep gouge, but the strike was turned away.

Everyone else ran outside. They all took an assessment of the situation. Jex shot an arrow into the sky, but the roc was able to swerve just in time. She learned that her arrows could fly out of the shield, but not into it. Everyone else had handheld weapons. They ran at the injured roc and began stabbing it. It screeched and tried to fly away, but too many feathers had been burned off. It pecked at Arden in the chest. Its beak cracked his iron chest plate and he was knocked down backwards.

Brun tried to cast fire one into the air, but the two rocs circling overhead were too far away and his pointed staff missed. Jex managed to hit one in the wing. The arrow sunk in a little, but mostly it just made the roc more angry. It went into a dive and slammed face first into the dome. It suffered from the four level one spells, but the dome shield shattered into pieces and disappeared as the fragments were falling to the ground. The stunned roc tumbled to the ground. Arden regained his feet and stabbed it in a wing. The roc turned its neck and bit him in the arm as he tried to protect himself. His forearm was cut cleanly off from the powerful beak.

The others had finished killing the first roc and turned to attack the other downed one. Brun and Rome had spent all their mana, and waited near the back with unsteady bows in their hands.

Graul, Torger, and Antic watched the gruesome sight as they ran towards it, a memory they can’t shake of Arden’s right leg being bit off at the thigh. Blood poured all over the ground from the wound. Everyone else circled it and stabbed at it, except Jex who shot ice arrows at it.

Rome and Brun, who were standing near the back, never saw the roc swoop down from above and grab each one in the head with its claws. It crushed its talons as hard as it could, and their skulls imploded, then with two mighty flaps of its wings it flew away. They killed the second roc, after it killed Arden, but the third one never returned. It headed towards the mountains to the north and didn’t look back.

They waited a few minutes for their friends to respawn. Not knowing what else to do, Graul looked into how to repair the shield. It showed:

Repair shield for Home. Cost 1 Ability point.

He used an ability point, and the shield came back up at full strength. It took a few more minutes for the respawn to complete, but then there were three flashes of green light in the house. A few minutes later the three men came outside wearing old rabbit furs and with angry looks on their faces. They gathered their weapons and armor silently, and put it on.

“I hate dying! It never gets easier, it’s just as scary and painful each time.”

Before anyone could answer, the farmer pushed a pile of rocks off himself. “Heh. You fought and lost, no surprise there. You’re no match for three rocs. I’m really surprised you killed two of ‘em, though the shield did most of the work. We dwarves learn at an early age to bury ourselves under stones when we see them, and just let them eat whatever they want. They must not have seen a deer today and saw me instead. I’ve known a couple of dwarves who died by getting eaten by one of them birds. Gotta be a terrible way to go.”

“Yes. It is.” Arden said no more.

As usual, Rome checked how much experience he got from killing a roc, but remembered he lost it all when he died again and had 0/1000 exp.

Brun started jumping up and down and waving his hands. His eyes were crossed and out of focus, so they knew he was checking his icons. “I did it! I finally did it! I got fire two! Let’s see, oh here it is, it does base fourteen damage points to one target. Cost is fifteen mana. Oh. That’s not good. The spell is twice as strong but costs triple the mana. All this waiting. That sucks.”

“Too bad Brun. But we have a mission to accomplish. Tonight we’re going to have a turkey feast with the dwarves! Carve up this bird and let’s take it to Small Hammer. Finally something different than deer and rabbit.” Torger triumphantly cut off a huge wing and held it over his head. He didn’t care that blood was dripping on him.

Graul had an ear to ear smile and was swinging his sword in the air. When he noticed others looking at him he asked “Did you see that? When I struck the bird with my sword it glowed red and left scorch marks wherever I cut it. A magic infused sword is awesome!” No one had seen it happen in the heat of combat, but saw seared cuts on both birds.