Chapter 7

Change of Plan

In the morning Graul led the way up the river bank, with Antic behind him and Torger as rear guard. It wasn’t long before Antic spotted a simmet half buried in the mud. He pointed it out and Jex shot it with an ice arrow. It hissed and three others emerged from the mud. Graul ran to face one, Torger another, and Antic another. Arden kept trying to run around to the back of one, but it kept turning in circles. He needed Antic to keep it at bay. He saw him not far away, then ran and stabbed the simmet in the back leg. It turned to bite him, giving Antic a clear shot. He thrust his spear through its exposed neck, leaning forward a little, but his adrenaline was up and he thrust too hard.

The spear went all the way through, and the simmet jerked involuntarily, wrenching the only oak spear out of Antic’s hands. At the same time Arden had to turn and face the simmet he was trying to get away from. Brun cast Fire 2 at the nearly dead simmet Antic had stabbed, and a few seconds later it bled to death. Antic had to abandon his oak spear to go help Arden. They both kept trying to get around to the back of it, but finally Antic had to man up and keep it focused on him in the front, with a few jabs to the face. That let Arden stab it in the back legs over and over again. It had a snake tail, not an alligator tail, so he didn’t have to worry about it knocking him down. Simmets also had snake heads and necks, with alligator bodies and teeth.

Jex kept alternating her shots between the simmet attacking Graul and the one Torger was attacking. Torger eventually beat his opponent with a stab through an eye, then helped Graul. Jex switched over to help Antic and Arden. When Torger and Graul got there its back legs were a mess that looked like ground beef, and its sides had about twenty arrows in it. Brun cast Ice 1 then Graul finished it. Antic pointed at one; he could see a glow around its stomach. They dragged it back to camp and he cut it open with Torger’s sword. It had a small but clear ruby in it.

“That must have been on one of the goblins it ate. Good job Antic.”

Like the ones from the day before, they dragged it to the ocean and threw it in. Standing on the sand they felt the cold wind and saw more storm clouds coming in. The next day they killed four more simmets, with it raining and the river higher. They had to lure the beasts onto the banks to fight them, but it worked out.

The next day they killed four more, again with some rain but not as intense. Overall they collected four silver coins and six copper coins, along with twenty snake teeth. As they were wet and shivering and cooking dinner, they saw some dwarves approaching in the distance. Torger and Graul told the others to stay back, but be ready for anything. They walked up to these dwarves and saw they were wearing different clothing than they had seen anywhere else. They had thick furs on and huge feathers sewn into the furs. When they were fifty yards away Torger held his hands above his head and said “Greetings!”

The lead one called back “Hello. We come in peace. We are looking for dwarves to trade with.”

“Then please come near. I would like to talk about business with you.”

Once they arrived, the dwarf in charge said “We usually only trade with dwarves, but might have something you want.”

As they came closer Torger could see they were well armed travelling merchants. The one that had spoken seemed to be in charge, with four heavily armed and dangerous looking dwarves, and two dwarves that had huge duffel bags on their backs. The one in charge said “Call me Treluge. Could we warm ourselves by your fire?”

“Sure come on over.” Torger and Graul turned their backs on them, tense in case they were attacked from behind, but trusted their friends to help out if needed. They sat around the fire, the two baggage carriers unloading their burdens but the four warriors kept their hands on their axes.

Graul began the conversation with “I’m sorry we don’t have much to offer you. We didn’t expect to be here long. Where did you come from?”

“After the last terra form, we found ourselves in mountains that had a lot of coal, far to the east. We’ve been walking and trading to the west for a year, and now we finally see there is an ocean.”

“It sounds like you started in the Appalachians. That is a long walk. Have you seen many dwarf villages on the way?”

“I don’t know what you mean by apple lotions. I don’t have that to sell you. No dwarf has ever asked me for apple lotion before. Maybe this translate isn’t working right. Something’s screwy with the tyters. We’ve seen and heard of all kinds of tyter prey here, and here you are, even more of their prey.”

Graul laughed. “First, I didn’t say apple lotions. The mountains where you started is a place called Appalachians. This land was terra formed to be like our planet; we’re the original intended prey. The tyters’ system malfunctioned and brought creatures from all of their prey planets here. I don’t understand it, but that’s what we think happened. If you want I could draw you a map of this world. Of course it wouldn’t be very detailed, but it would be accurate.”

“That is something I could use, but how do I know if it’s right?”

Torger realized the merchant expected to pay for the map. “I’ll tell you what. I will draw what you have seen from where you started to here. You’ll see I’m right, then I could draw you what I know of the rest of the world.”

“Sounds reasonable. What’s your price?”

“I really need two things, a magic back pack, and another tent.”

“A little steep. What else have you got?”

Torger reached into his shredded and no-longer-magical back pack and pulled out the copper swords and coins they found on the goblin bodies in the river.

“Copper? You really are poor aren’t you? I guess it’s a deal.”

The merchant gave Torger parchment and a sharpened piece of coal. Torger consulted with his friends and they drew an outline of America. He drew the Appalachians, Mississippi River, Rocky Mountains, and Colorado River. He showed it to the merchant who was satisfied Torger knew what he was doing. They added the badlands, crops of the plains in the heartland, deserts of the southwest, Snake River and forests of the northwest, swamps of Florida, then Yellowstone and Yosemite. On another parchment Jex drew an outline of the Americas. They thought it would be a waste of time to tell the dwarves about the other continents since they would never go there anyways. Since they were all from California, the southwest had the most details, and explained that to Treluge, who accepted it. Once he was satisfied they told him everything about the land, one of the bag carriers opened up the duffle bag and pulled out a large dwarf tent and magic back pack.

Torger was relieved they were back to two tents. Every night they had to take turns sleeping outside. And the tent easily fit into the magic back pack with room to spare.

“That was a good trade for both of us Treluge. I see you are a fair and honest dwarf. Do you happen to have ice arrows? We’re running low.”

“Sure, how many do you want?”

“About fifty.”

The dwarf guards stiffened. “Fifty? You’re hunting something around here weak against ice huh? I don’t know what else you have for trade, but in coin that would be three gold pieces.”

“Three gold!” Torger knew he blew it. He gave away that they needed the ice arrows badly and of course the professional merchant caught on. Arden whispered in Torger’s ear. Torger told Treluge “I am afraid I’m being a bad host to our guests. Treluge, would you mind finishing this transaction with my friend Arden? I would like to talk about pleasant topics with your acquaintances.”

Treluge took two guards with him, and left two with the inventory. Torger whispered instructions into Arden’s ear and slipped him the small ruby.

The conversation between the dwarves and humans kept sputtering as they were nervously awaiting the results of the trade. Graul found out the giant duffle bags were actually high capacity magic storage bags, they could fit twenty times the stuff into the space with only one tenth the weight. The bag carriers put most of their ability points into strength and stamina, allowing them to carry the full duffle bags for long distances. Finally Arden came back and sat next to Torger. Treluge said “Your friend is a tough negotiator. It was smart of you to have him handle this trade.”

He told his dwarves to get thirty ice arrows, a wood staff for Brun, an iron shield for Graul, and iron armor for Antic and Arden. The armor was too small of course, being made for dwarves, but they were given extra iron and leather straps so once they got to a blacksmith they would be fully outfitted. He held out his hand to Arden, who told Torger he needed to give up the four silver coins from the simmets. Torger paid up and the dwarves left, heading straight toward Small Hammer, the directions to the dwarf village also part of the trade.

They slept much better that night, with everyone in a tent, and were ready for more hunting in the morning. Arden and Antic had greaves and bracers on from the trade, though they were too small. But it made them a little less afraid of getting bit with two rows of curved snake like alligator teeth.

While hunting the simmets the next day, Antic and Arden worked out a system of attacking from both sides, and Jex used more arrows than she had before. The result was they had enough energy left to go find another group of four simmets.

At the end of the day they all had gained an ability point and were a couple hundred experience points towards the next one. This went on for the next two days. Then as they were walking along the bank they saw another group of four. But these were in the exact same spot as the first time they got attacked, when Graul wasn’t there and Torger had lost his sword. They killed the simmets easily enough, but they had no coins or jewels inside. With every other group of four, one of them had a coin or two in its stomach. The next day they found four at the same spot they killed simmets on their second day hunting them. The simmets were respawning in the same place they had died a week earlier, but none had treasure. No one knew what to make of it until Graul remembered hearing from Baybil that the natural deer, rabbits, and coyotes of the area respawned after one week. That might have meant the simmets weren’t prey for the tyters, they were native to Nuva. But they still had no way of knowing which monsters were native and which were tyter prey.

After another week, they were cooking dinner in the rain, the two tents keeping them dry, and Brun pointed down the hill. Rome was walking up and looking happy. “Rome how are you? We’ve missed you. Are you hungry? Tell us what happened on the raft. What was it like getting eaten by an octopus? What are you carrying?”

Rome was flooded with these questions before he even made it to the top of the hill. “Have I got a lot to share with you guys. First, give me some food and water, I haven’t eaten in two days.”

Rome finished his rabbit meat with delight, while everyone else was sick of it. They were considering killing a possum, squirrel, or skunk just to have something different. When Rome was full and well hydrated, he continued.

“I made it to Catalina.” Shouts and questions filled the otherwise peaceful quiet. “Whoa calm down, no questions, let me finish. There is a tyter entrance and exit building there. It seems like it’s used for them to transport to and from orbiting space ships, but that’s just a guess. It wouldn’t let me or any of them teleport to another world because it’s broken. But it did give me three spells! Teleport one, two, and three! I didn’t die! I teleported to Lake Silverwood.”

There were cheers all around and they asked him how it worked. “With teleport one, I can return from anywhere to my respawn point. Teleport two allows me to teleport to any ally village, and teleport three allows me to send any five friends to any ally village. But I don’t have enough mana for teleport two, and I’ll probably never have enough for three.

“I went to Lake Silverwood because Calico was destroyed in the earthquake. Stone Fist is rebuilding the aqueduct and Strong Arm is rebuilding Calico, but razorlings have taken over the mines again. On my way here I stopped by to see Baybil. I traded for this.”

Rome held out a silver staff. He said “Brun, we should trade staffs for now. I still don’t have any useful magic.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Your wood staff makes your spells ten percent stronger. This silver staff makes them fifty percent stronger.”

Torger said “There were some fierce looking dwarves, merchants, heading that way. Did you see them?”

“Yes. I hid when I saw them, and I don’t think they saw me. Now that we know Catalina was a bust, what’s next?”

Antic responded “Let’s all sleep on it. But first, what did you trade?”

“An octopus arm and head, along with my wood staff, cloak, magic satchel, and the village silver that was mined after we left, which was a couple pounds of ore.”

Torger said “I hope that silver staff pays for itself, maybe Arden should handle all our trading now.” Torger didn’t think Rome had made a good trade, but he didn’t realize the power of a better staff in a mage’s hand.

Chapter 8

Protection

In the morning they were sitting around a fire. Torger said “Alright, let’s hear some ideas. Since Catalina won’t get us home like we hoped, what do we need to do?”

“Let’s go after the potions icon in Havasu. The bed icon gave us magic, and the green ball gave Rome teleport spells. The potions have to be good.”

“I think we need to go after the grenade in Yosemite. We need some superior weapons.”

“Let’s go kick some goblin ass. I’m still pissed off about being a slave.”

Rome spoke. “All good ideas, but I think we should go secure Calico. We need the money and then can buy better weapons and some potions. Besides Torger, you’re still their mayor and they did rescue you from slavery.”

Torger and Graul agreed they had a debt to pay. They voted and “go to Calico” won with three votes out of the seven. They stopped by the river to kill some more simmets and Rome was very impressed how they learned to work as a team. He could see his usefulness with cure spells being a big advantage to the team. But he stood there and watched them fight.

After they quickly killed another four simmets, Rome asked “How much experience have you guys gained from killing these things? You all look stronger and more agile in combat.”

Antic checked his Experience. “That just gave us another ability point.”

Rome watched as they all grew a half inch taller and got slightly larger muscles. Antic looked pleased with himself. He answered “That was the fourth ability point we gained from killing these things. Each time we invested it into more strength. The thinking was we would need a lot of strength to row out to Catalina. My strength is now fourteen. Arden has the lowest with nine. Sorry Rome, but you really missed out these last two weeks.”

It was true. Rome’s strength was seven. He was a little bothered by being the physically weakest, but the teleport spells made up for it.

After they rested they headed inland. The next day they looked in the giant rabbit hole at Kellogg hill but saw nothing. It would be a waste of time to follow an underground cave made by a huge rabbit. A couple days later they came to Small Hammer. Baybil came out to greet them as usual.

“Torger my friend, come in. I want to thank you for sending the merchant here. We had many good trades. I was so pleased I sent him to Calico to trade there.”

“Baybil, they’re on the way to Calico? They seem like honest merchants, but Calico is unguarded. They could take over the mines.”

“Really? Rome didn’t tell me that when he was here. Otherwise I would have sent them another direction. They may be honest merchants, but if a group of dwarves see a mine for the taking, honesty gets slippery. You need to hurry.”

Rome stepped up. “Torger it’s not completely unguarded. Strong Arm and some dwarves are there rebuilding. But more help would be good. Baybil, Small Hammer is a nice little village here, but what if you joined up with Calico? Both villages would be stronger for it and you’re both from the Cucamonga tribe. Of course that’s Torger’s decision to make, but maybe you should talk about it mayor to mayor.”

Everyone looked at Rome with expressions from shock to anger for bringing that up without speaking about it within the group first, but he didn’t care. He wanted to complete his quest from Strong Arm. Baybil and Torger went into Baybil’s cave, while the others went to the blacksmith. They gave him the money they got from the simmets and the iron armor they got from Treluge. He saw the forty two silver coins they offered and happily told them he could have the armor enlarged to fit them by noon the next day.

A few hours later Torger and Baybil came out of the cave and Torger announced “We have come to an agreement. Our villages will merge. Baybil’s dwarves will move to Calico and help rebuild it, but are not allowed to mine for silver. They can open their own businesses and pay the same ten percent tax as the dwarves that are in Calico. This will last until my term as mayor is ended in June.”

Rome couldn’t hold back his smile. His eyes crossed as he looked at his quests and saw it was complete. He received 600 exp, which gave him one ability point, and he could look forward to 2% of all the silver ore Strong Arm gets.

That night Baybil held a big feast to tell his villagers. Most of them seemed to like the idea, but a few liked the fresh water of San Antonio Falls in the cool mountains. None of them wanted to live in a hot desert, but there was strength in numbers.

It took Small Hammer a couple of days to get packed, and ironically the dirt path from Calico to Small Hammer was finished that same day. Four days after that they entered Calico. The little village just nearly doubled its population from forty-five to seventy-three. Torger saw that all his villagers were there and looking afraid. He found Strong Arm and asked what was wrong.

“First, the elves kicked us off the mountain. They said we were allowed to be there until the first rain. We weren’t prepared for all the dwarves to return yet. You can see we don’t have one building finished yet. Then last week some powerful merchant comes here and wants to trade. We do some trading and everything goes fine, but he sees it isn’t a proper village. He claims the mines for himself. We weren’t prepared to fight him and had to let him and his crew go into the mines. We haven’t seen them since.”

That was a lot for Torger to take in all at once. ‘OK, we’ll go look in the mines and see what’s going on. For now let these dwarves from Small Hammer set up their tents, and have someone show them around. They are instructed to help rebuild Calico, but won’t start on that until tomorrow.”

Strong Arm smiled at the news of the merger and said “Stone Fist is going to love that. He’s almost done with the aqueduct, then needs to build a lot of buildings. We’ve been short handed since moving here. But be warned, not everyone’s going to like it.”

The humans started going towards the mines, but Rome stayed back. “Strong Arm, I’ve now got one ability point. Do you think I should be saving for cure one or analyze one?”

“You should ask Torger, but my advice is you want to know and see what you’re fighting.”

Rome thanked him for the advice and ran to catch up with the others. They came to the first mine, which was one of the ones that didn’t collapse in the earthquake. They walked in a few feet and five razorlings ran at them. Torger and Graul each took on one, Torger blocking attacks with his long sword and Graul blocking with his shield and countering with his flame sword. Even Antic thrust his spear into the face of one, sinking in a few inches then withdrawing it.

But the other two razorlings saw Arden looking unsteady with his short spear. The tunnel was congested and they couldn’t get to him but tried crawling over the other three. Rome saw all that was going on and called for them to not back up. He knew if they did, the razorlings could flank them all. Jex released an arrow every time there was a clear opening, which wasn’t very often. She mostly saw the backs of Graul, Torger and Antic taking up the full width of the tunnel. But her excellent shots eventually landed one ice arrow in each beast, slowing them down a little. Frustrated she couldn’t get in any more arrows she cast Ice 1 at the razorling that Torger was battling, then Ice 1 at the one Antic was trying to keep at bay. Those two slowed down a little more, which gave Torger the chance to stab his sword into the head of his opponent. It went through the brain, the razorling convulsed and died as Torger readied himself to fight the next one climbing over its dead companion.

Graul’s flame sword countered the slowing of the ice arrow Jex had shot, and Graul was left mostly blocking with his new iron shield. Without it, he would have already died. Antic was slowly giving ground, and would soon back into his friends. Suddenly the razorling he was fighting got frostbite all over its front right leg. Antic looked back and saw Brun readying another Ice 1 spell. Antic faced his opponent again and a second later the other front leg got frostbite. Antic took the opportunity to thrust his spear forward with half his strength, leaning slightly forward into it like he did with the simmets. The spear went into the face about a foot, but the razorling didn’t die. It backed up in pain, but Antic stepped forward and pushed the spear in a little farther. It still didn’t die. Antic withdrew the spear, thankful it didn’t break.

Brun cast Ice 1 twice at the unattended razorling, slowing its speed significantly. Arden ran ahead and helped Antic kill the badly wounded razorling, and as it was dying they heard Graul yell in pain. His razorling had finally got a claw around the round shield and deeply cut his forearm. He dropped the shield as his left hand hung limp and useless. He used his right hand to swing down onto the beast’s head, splitting the skull, but in its last bit of strength it used a claw and tore into Graul’s leg. He collapsed on the floor and Arden sunk his short spear into it, finally killing it.

With Graul down that gave Jex the chance to shoot two arrows into the razorling with two frost bitten front legs. They were now normal iron arrowheads because she spent most of the ice arrows while fighting the simmets. After an Ice arrow was used, it lost its magical property but remained as a normal arrow. Even after getting hit with two more arrows, the lizard was still able to get to Torger and bite his right arm. He held the two handed steel sword with his left hand and weakly swung it at the razorling biting him. The sword cut into a bad front leg, but that did nothing to get it off him. That did give the other razorling the chance to bite his other arm. Torger collapsed under the weight, completely helpless, but Jex had clear shots at both to shoot arrows as fast as she could.

Antic drove his spear all the way through the side of the razorling he and Arden were fighting. It squirmed and Arden stabbed it in the face with his short spear. They went over and both stabbed one of the lizards in the side. It finally released its grip on Torger’s arm, and tried to bite Antic, but he stabbed it through the face. It died then Antic drove his spear through the last one that was peppered with arrows.

It died and the four men helped Torger and Graul to their feet, while Jex ran to the village for help. When they finally got there, the brothers had lost a lot of blood. There were four dwarves that knew the spell Cure 1. They each cast it once on each brother. The result of receiving four Cure 1 spells each was that the bleeding slowed to a trickle. They were taken to their tent and Jex and Rome helped them remove their leather armor then lay down.

Brun, Antic, and Arden searched and found Hastaff the dwarf that made the iron armor for them, which they had bought from Treluge the trader.

“What the hell is this? You ripped us off!” Arden was furious as he held up Graul’s iron bracer that had four claw scratches going all the way through the iron.

“No I didn’t! Razorling claws will go through iron if there’s enough force behind it. Everyone knows that.”

“I don’t think so. I think this is shoddy work.”

“Fine. Let’s go ask Strong Arm. You can hear from him iron isn’t good enough against razorlings.”

They walked to the half way rebuilt private house. Six dwarves were working on it with Strong Arm standing on the ground shouting instructions. Arden walked up behind him and said “Strong Arm we need your professional opinion. This hack gave us bad armor and said it’s not his fault. But look at this!”

Strong Arm took the bracer and examined the iron and gouges going all the way through it. He saw the blood on the inside and said “Everyone knows not to fight grown razorlings with iron armor. This is about average workmanship for iron, maybe slightly low but not bad. Whose is it?”

Arden looked at him in shock. “You mean a razorling claw is stronger than iron? I had no way of knowing that. Iron blocked them before when we fought them.” He looked at the other black smith. “I guess I owe you an apology. But what do you suggest we do? We have to find out if the trader is stealing our silver in the mines.”

“You need steel armor against them. But I’m not going to have a forge up and running soon, and neither is Strong Arm. If you’re going to fight grown razorlings, you’ll have to be more careful. I see you don’t know what I mean by “grown.’ All prey that is brought to Nuva grows in strength. The tyters give them three years to get stronger, with the land conditions suitable for the prey to grow as strong as possible. I guess it makes their hunt more exciting or something. Didn’t you notice the razorlings are now a little bigger, stronger, and quicker than they were when you first fought them? They’ve been here for ten months now.”

Brun said “That really sucks. We needed to know that before the fight began. Torger might want you to shift your priority to building a smithy. But you’ll have to talk to him about that. He and Graul are badly banged up right now.”

They walked back to check on their friends. The four dwarves with Cure 1 had recovered enough mana to cast it again once each. Torger and Graul looked much better. Color had come back to their faces and the wounds were mostly closed.

Brun looked at the healers and said “Thank you. If we were in the wilderness, I don’t think they would have made it.”

They told him it was no problem, they’ll charge Torger for their services later, and they left the tent. Brun and Arden walked in, and that was all that would fit. Torger looked at him and said “Good thinking Brun. Your ice spells helped save us.”

“I saw you fighting, and remembered I had bought ice one, but had no idea it would be so powerful.” He looked at his new silver staff and the old cloak he was wearing. “The staff really did amplify the effect. We found out iron won’t hold up to razorling teeth and claws anymore, but if you want to try again tomorrow, I would like to keep casting ice one until I learn ice two. But of course that’s your call.”

“Of course we’re going again tomorrow, but with a different strategy. I’ll think it over tonight.”