Chapter 25

Spring

The next morning the dwarves went back to the mines, but kept a youth at the tunnel entrance to watch for danger attacking the village shield. Torger and the Regulators found and killed eleven bears, completing the mission, but it was midnight before they made it back. But as tired as he was, Torger accepted the award from Stone Fist. The shield expanded twice, going out to a four hundred foot diameter, and enclosing all the dwarf tents. Killing the eleven bears that day had given Torger and his friends each 1021 experience points, and he earned 900 exp points for completing the mission, so he used the two new ability points to strengthen the shield twice. It grew to have a strength of 200/200 and added Fire 1 and Ice 1 to the already standard Lightning 1.

He also enjoyed the other reward for completing the quest: the large boost to village morale and respect. Morale soared to 51/100, and respect shot up to 79/100. His villagers liked and accepted him a whole lot better, and most no longer held grudges against him for asking them to attack the rocs although they were unprepared the second day they were at the location. That mistake cost two dwarves their lives. And Torger had made the mistake of sending all the physically strong dwarves into the mines, leaving the children and old women to hide from two attacking trolls. But that mistake was completely forgiven with the morale and respect boosts.

The higher morale for some reason seemed to allow more silver to come out of the mine. Instead of getting the ounce and a half of silver ore, after paying everyone, Torger was getting two ounces per day. They had nowhere to spend it, but they were only going to be there for a few months anyway.

A week after the Regulators finished the quest, a night sentry saw another troll in the distance. He told Torger about it the next day, and that got the humans excited. After constantly hunting and fighting since coming to Nuva, this was the first week where they were actually bored. Torger, Graul, and Rome had always found construction projects to work on, and Jex and Arden liked to go hunting, but none of that was necessary. Fresh fish were brought from the lake every day, along with buckets of water, and the large garden would be producing fruit in a couple of weeks.

The idea of a troll nearby gave them a challenge. Their upgraded weapons and stats had made killing the rocs, bears, and occasional cottol that came into the area too easy. After the quest, no one had killed anything, yet everyone but Torger had three or five unused ability points. Before they set out, Torger asked them to invest in strength, just in case the trolls got the upper hand. He knew they had all lost several unspent ability points from dying in a hot battle.

Antic gladly and quickly spent his five on strength, bringing him to twenty-two. Rome was impressed. He had only analyzed two dwarves in all of the mayor’s council with a strength that high. As for Rome, He spent three to finally learn Cure 1, and the other two ability points went to learn Lightning 1. Torger of course had none, since he spent his on repairing then strengthening the village shield.

Graul spent three learning Cure 1, and the fourth he invested into one strength point, bringing him to fourteen. Brun also bought Cure 1, and spent his other two ability points to get ten more mana, bringing him to sixty. Jex bought Cure 1, and had one ability point to spend on strength, bringing her to fifteen. Arden had three ability points, but already had Cure 1, so he used them for strength. He hated being weaker than his wife, and this boost brought him to thirteen. Jex couldn’t resist pointing out to everyone that she could still kick her husband’s ass. With her new strength increase, Jex placed her regular recurve bow in her backpack, and withdrew I.B. She knocked an arrow and pulled back until the tension maxed out. Her strength allowed her to hold it for two full seconds before her hands started shaking from the strain and she lost sight of her distant target. She cheered and called out “Look out trolls! An Incoming Blizzard is headed your way!”

Her cheer caused all the humans to raise their weapons and run out of the village. An old dwarf watched them go, then shook her head and muttered “Morons. Good hunting, you stupid, brave, and happy tyter prey. Enjoy what little life you have left.”

They headed north to the nearest mountain, above the mine. Looking around they couldn’t find any troll footprints on the granite ground, so they headed to the west towards Lake Tahoe. After a couple of hours, Torger found a print. They followed it and found another. They kept following the trail for miles, and when they came to a top of a hill, they saw three trolls entering a cave and swinging their clubs at something unseen just inside. The humans crept closer, a rare chance to see one group of monsters fighting another group of monsters.

A troll froze, and dropped to the ground. The other two kept swinging their clubs. After a few seconds, the first troll got up and resumed his attack. After a couple minutes, they were too far in the shadows to see clearly. Everyone but Jex and Antic cast Analyze 1, because those two didn’t have that spell. Jex instead switched bows and looked down an arrow shaft while holding the Bow of the Owl. They could see grey outlines of small, one foot snakes and large, dinner plate sized spiders trying to bite the trolls, but the thick hides usually protected them, although once in a while the paralysis venom would pierce through the skin and a troll would collapse.

The five people who used analyze saw it was a level 1 cave. The treasure inside would be weak, but the venom was valuable to coat Jex’s arrows. They missed the opportunity the first time they fought these level 1 pests, but there was no way they were going to pass on that valuable venom again. And to make things worse, the trolls seemed to be completely crushing snake and spider heads, destroying the venom. They had to stop the slaughter quickly.

On Torger’s signal, they ran towards the cave. Brun attacked first, casting Poison 1. It hit a troll, who began coughing. The troll looked back at them and grunted. The other two turned and saw the humans, and began charging. For good measure, Brun cast Poison 1 twice more, once at each troll, and good thing he did too because in both cases the fog caused them to cough. But the main damage was done, all three trolls vomited, sharted, and lost half their max health, but still they ran at the group of little insolent people.

As they had done so many times before, Jex began shooting arrows as fast as she could, Brun began casting Lighting 1 as fast as he could (good for five casts) and Rome cast Analyze 2 at a troll. The other four men charged, weapons held high. Rome saw

Mountain Troll Level 19 Health 182/450 225 Mana 0/0 Strength 12/12 Stamina 31/40 Elemental weakness: none

He had never cast Analyze on a target after it had suffered the flu symptoms of Poison 1. That was an awesome spell Brun had. The missing 43 health points had to have come from the two arrows sticking out of its belly. Unfortunately, both mages had run out of mana before the melee fighters got there. But their higher levels, and superior weapons and armor made short work of the three trolls. Graul ducked the first slow and clumsy club swing, then snuck in close and behind the eight foot tall green beast. He easily sliced the back of the calf and the troll fell to the ground.

Antic and Arden worked as team with their spears. Arden tried to jab it in the face so that Antic could get behind it, but the troll grabbed Arden’s spear and they got into a tug of war. But that provided the distraction Antic needed, and he thrust his spear through its back and out the front of its chest. He loved having his new strength of twenty-two. He was only 5-11 with all the twenty-one half inch growths, but his biceps were bulging. He could bench press 280 pounds twice. But his speed and dexterity paid the price, as did his stamina. He moved slower and was less flexible than he had been, and his max stamina dropped to 90. That was an unexpected setback in battle, and he knew he would need to make a decision with how to spend future ability points on his new buff bod. Antic could squat 400 pounds then jog fifteen miles before stopping, a feat few humans can do. As muscle mass increases, stamina decreases and Antic seemed to have hit the limit of muscle to stamina available to humans. When he invested ability points to bring his strength up to 22, his stamina max dropped from 96 to 90.

Torger faced his troll head on like a man. When the monster swung his club like a baseball bat, Torger turned Red Fury to stop it with the blade side. The sharp steel sword cut deep into the crudely shaped oak tree branch, and a fireball hit the troll in the chest, but with only a strength of 13 he lost the power battle since the momentum was in favor of the troll. Torger tried to keep a hold of his sword, but it was ripped from his hands when the troll raised the club up. Torger was flung to the ground, and the troll raised a foot to stomp on the little foe, but Jex saved the day with a well placed shot to the eye. The troll snapped its head back to avoid the pain, but it was already standing on one foot and was off balance. It fell backwards. Torger got up, saw his sword deeply embedded in the wood, and ran away towards Jex. She aimed carefully, and sent an arrow flying, which hit the troll in the nuts and penetrated six inches into the bladder. Mercifully, Graul finished off his opponent then quickly ended the life of the stupid monster.

They all regrouped, except Torger who had to use all his strength to slowly wiggle his sword free. When he returned to the group, they all pointed and laughed at him. He joined in the laughter and said “Yeah, that was real stupid, trying to block a club with a sword against an equally strong opponent. I won’t do that again.”

Graul gasped and said “Oh no! Torger. Your sword. Red Fury.”

Torger looked and saw a hairline crack in the steel. He screamed into the sky, and hung his head in shame. He quietly said “You guys bring back the venom. I want to be alone for a while.”

Rome tried to reach for him as he walked away, but Graul caught his hand. “No. He needs to be by himself. It’s the way he is.” They decided to trust Torger’s brother to know how to handle their leader’s depression.

Torger walked straight back to his tent and laid down on his mat. He didn’t move for hours, drifting in and out of sleep. When it was almost dark, he heard his friends return. He didn’t get up, and hoped they would leave him alone. They did. He heard everyone eating dinner and talking about the battle with the trolls, but left his sword out of the story. He was thankful for that. As they continued to talk, he forced himself to fall asleep.

A while later, he heard Graul enter. Graul tried to be quiet, but it’s hard to not make much noise when you’re piling steel armor into a heap in the corner. Torger asked “How’d it go?”

Graul was glad to hear him talk. “Fine. We got fifty-one spiders and sixty-two snakes. A few were damaged, but a dwarf said he has the skill to remove the venom and coat the arrows. Problem is, we’re really low on arrows. Jex’s new strength means more arrows are breaking on impact, so we’re only recovering half of the ones she shoots. But once we carve more, we’ll have a hundred and ten paralysis arrows. It’ll cost us a half pound of ore.”

“It’s worth it. But that worries me about the arrow loss. We’ll need stronger wood.”

“We were thinking the same thing. But as good as she is, I was wondering if maybe she could use billik legs as the shafts. But I don’t know how straight they fly and how hard it is to notch them for the feathers to go in. It would take a professional fletcher for that. She’s now at level twenty-eight with bows. She has the strength and accuracy to hit a watermelon from two hundred yards. Crooked arrows would take that advantage away from us.”

“I’m thinking of going to the elves. I need a new sword, but they don’t work with metal, and we didn’t build a smithy here. But I want to know if the ruby is salvageable. Maybe I can get them to make the highest quality arrows while I’m there. And I should send someone to find Strong Arm and see if he’s had the chance to make more shotgun shells. I’m sure he’s been busy moving the whole village a few hundred miles, but maybe he’s had time.”

“I’m sure the elves could salvage the ruby, but you should just hang out for a couple of months. There doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous around here. At least not dangerous to how strong we’ve become. Let us keep threats away, and you oversee the village until we move in a couple of months.”

“Maybe we should move now. Let’s get to the gold early.”

“I don’t know what you have planned long term Torger. You’ve kept all of us in the dark. But whatever your plan was when you were thinking clearly is probably better than changing plans in the emotional state you’re in. Spend the next two months boosting the morale of the dwarves, and practice with other weapons. Remember you get a learning bonus for all weapons, not just swords. Although Red Fury is the coolest and fiercest weapon we have. Carve a tree branch and improve your use of clubs, or use Jex’s regular bow and get better with archery. You’ll learn quicker than the others, so use this opportunity.”

“I guess you’re right. You guys probably got a lot of experience from all the creeping things, huh?”

“No. The suckers were all level one and two. They’re indigenous to Nuva, so they don’t gain levels and get harder. We each got nine hundred and fifty experience from them. But I think you’re forgetting what treasure was in the cave the first time we killed them.”

Torger fully opened his eyes. “I remember from one cave we got a stone that gave your sword fire one, and a stone that made twenty-five ice arrows for Jex. And from the other cave we got a teleport stone that we sold to Baybil for way too little money. So what did we get this time?”

“A piece of quartz that contains fire one, and a low level strength potion.”

“Great. Close to worthless.”

“Yeah that’s what I thought you would say. So I made the decision to pay a dwarf to add the stone to Arden’s spear. He’s still not great with it, only level six, but a little extra fire damage wouldn’t hurt. And that brings our total low level strength potions to an even twenty.”

“We’ve never had need to use one of them. I’ll see if I can trade the twenty for a new sword once we find the gold mine. In the meantime, I’m going to sleep.”

“OK cool. Things will look brighter tomorrow. Oh, by the way, I gained an ability point today. I spent it on health, just to see what it felt like. I feel tougher. I get why Antic’s addicted to it. Good night.”

In the morning Antic was furious. He came up to the others and said “Guess what! I got screwed! You all know the last time I invested my ability points, I put five at one time into strength, and for some reason my stamina was lowered to ninety. So after yesterday’s battle with the trolls and spiders and snakes, I gained another ability point. This morning I put it into stamina to raise it to ninety-five, and my strength dropped to twenty-one! What happened?”

Rome said “It seems we have a cap. One hundred stamina and twenty strength. If we go over on one, the other is removed.”

“That’s not fair! I wish someone had told me! I wasted it. I could have put it into health.”

“Let’s hope there’s not a cap on that too.”

The others looked at their own stamina. After months of walking hundreds of miles, plus the time spent in the mines, they were all at an even fifty. When each one confirmed that’s what they had, it was Rome again who saw the bigger picture. “It looks like without investing into stamina, we could only gain that much through hard work. We’re all maxed out unless we spend ability points into it.”

Brun said “That sucks. I hope there isn’t a max we could hit from hard work for gaining strength.”

No one had the answer to that. But they would all have liked more stamina to be able to run a half marathon like Antic, yet still be able to squat 400 pounds like him.

Torger took a more fair and honest assessment of what he had going. In the dawn of a new day, he took Graul’s advice, and they all went out scouting for danger, but Torger carried Jex’s recurve bow. He was level 4 with bows on that first day, and they killed an adult male grizzly. They went out every day for two months, and by the end of spring Torger was level 11 with bows. He was far inferior to Jex, but the others let him get in the first shot at a bear, troll, roc or cottol they came across, then the others would charge forward and claim the easy experience.

It was the first week of May when Torger told the dwarves to shut down the mine. They packed up their tents and headed east. During the two months of mining, Torger received seven and a half ponds of silver ore for the village. Each dwarf miner had earned about fifteen pounds of silver ore. Moral was higher. It moved to 59/100.

While the miners swung picks in the dark, the Regulators hunted in the daylight and they each gained seven ability points and almost seven hundred additional experience from killing the random beasts that strayed too near. Their morale was high too, although there was no way to quantify it.

Chapter 26

Finding Gold

The village headed to the north side of Lake Tahoe, but didn’t quite make it that far on the first day. An hour before sunset Torger called a halt and they all set up tents for the night in a large meadow. He was a little frustrated at the slower than expected pace, but knew many of the dwarves didn’t have the same stamina as the humans. Only the hunters and miners still had energy to keep going. But on the bright side each dwarf family had a magic back pack to carry their tents and equipment. The men carried axes as they walked in case of a surprise attack, while the women kept encouraging the small children to keep up. The nine dwarf kids caused an additional two unexpected breaks during the walk. Watching all this throughout the day made Torger be more appreciative of the bachelor life he led back on Earth.

They had made it almost to where the dwarves reported there were elves, but it was the way they had to go. The next morning they broke camp, and after walking a few hours they were in a thick woods and suddenly found themselves surrounded by elves. All the dwarves scowled, but knew enough to keep their mouths shut. Three elves seemed to materialize out of the trees and walked toward the group. One called out with a high shrill voice “You dwarves know better than to enter elf territory. Who is your leader? We have agreements keeping each other at a distance.”

Torger stepped forward. “I am the mayor of this village of dwarves. I assume you are the border guards. Take me to the border elder and sit me down on the magic stone so the Winds of Truth will tell her we’re OK.”

The elf stepped back and rage came over his face and his four foot body trembled. “How dare you belittle our sacred customs? You will pay for your insolence! I will bind you before you are taken to the elder.”

The elf stepped forward with a rope in his hand. All the dwarves stepped back, but the other six Regulators drew their weapons and stepped forward. Eight arrows came out of trees towards the six humans, and none of them ever saw the elves that shot them. Everyone but Brun pointed at a space a few feet in front of themselves and said “Shield one!”

No arrows were shot at Torger and his shield was undamaged, but the first five arrows to strike crackled with ice and fire as those five shields shattered before they could retaliate with Lightning 1. The next three arrows hit Jex, Rome, and Brun in the right bicep, where there was no armor. Fire and ice exploded out of the arrows and blew a golf ball sized chunk of muscle away. They each dropped their weapons and grasped their gaping wounds.

Torger stepped forward and said “There is no need for this! I’m going willingly!”

But at the same time Arden ran to help Jex, and Antic and Graul raced forward to attack the hidden elves. Torger called “Stop!” but it was too late. Antic took an arrow in each bicep and was knocked backwards, and Graul blocked the two arrows shot at him with his steel shield, but the steel shield cracked from the combination of fire heating it to expand, and ice cooling it to contract. These arrows seemed to have both Fire 2 and Ice 2, and the shield took two of the mini missiles.

Torger and Graul held up their hands in surrender while the others began casting Cure 1 on themselves. Torger stepped forward with his hands raised. “I will meet your border elder peacefully, but there is no need for the rope. I will take off my armor, but wish to carry my cracked sword.”

The elf looked at the sword and saw it was damaged, and agreed. Torger walked in front of him and behind the other two elves that had made their presence known, but knew the eight hidden archers were still nearby watching his villagers.

As expected he sat on a stone with engravings on it. He was left alone and shivered from wearing only a thin cotton shirt and pants. It took nearly an hour before an old elfa came to him. She did not introduce herself.

“I am told you claim to be the mayor of a dwarven village. I don’t need the Winds to know that is a lie. But I am also told you are familiar with the Winds of Truth. How did you learn of it?”

“I sat on a similar stone to this a year ago, far to the south. The Border Elder is named Lagwil. I hope she has made it to Yosemite by now.”

“You know much of our affairs for tyter prey. Either you have met Lagwil or you are a clever spy. I will not delay my curiosity any longer.”

She waved her gold staff and chanted words that didn’t Translate, and the expected winds swirled around Torger. After a minute they died down.

“I see you are not here as an enemy, you are not here to trade, and yet you are also not lost. Curiosor and curiosor. What proof do you have that you are not a liar and a spy?”

Torger handed her Red Fury. “Dwarven steel infused with a ruby containing fire three. You know the dwarves do not have the ability for that kind of magic.”

“Ha! We trade swords like this with the dwarves on a regular basis. This is not a unique sword. It is slightly better than average. I’ll assume you bought it from a dwarf. Try again.”

Torger thought about what proof he had. He had never been allowed into the village at Lake Silverwood, but had explored it after they left. “I was never allowed in Lagwil’s village, but I looked around after they left. It is commonly believed elves build wood bridges high in the trees. I did find that. But I also found many trees had a hole cut in the stump and a large cavern was dug out underneath them. It looked like each cavern could house a family of three.”

She thought about these words. “You did meet Lagwil, or you are the greatest spy we have seen in over a hundred years. Lagwil and that village did meet up with another village of the Pomo tribe a couple hundred miles south of here, as you said. She also sent word it was a neutral human who told her where to send the scouts. You may be that human. The winds also told me you were wondering about trading the ruby. It can be salvaged by a skilled elf, but I do not trust you enough. Go seek Lagwil. If you are not a liar, you will know how to find her.”

The old elfa turned and walked away. Torger stood up and walked quickly back to his friends. He felt hidden eyes following him the whole way. When he got there he asked “How is the healing going?”

Graul and Arden hadn’t been hit, and everyone else showed them their completely healed arms. “Great. I’m glad we all know cure one now. Let’s go quickly.”

They left and walked through the woods as fast as they could. Along the way Brun told Torger everyone but himself had used all their mana casting Cure 1. Those arrows did a lot of damage. Rome proudly reported he used Analyze 2 on an elf, and found they are Level 22. Health 140 Stamina 90 Strength 4 Mana 100

Rome also said their strength is too low to shoot arrows that far and that accurately, so he assumed they put some sort of spell on the bows or arrows to fly far and straight. That information wasn’t helpful, but it did give them something to talk about as they ate dinner that night.

The next day they came to the large open valley Torger was expecting. He lived in this valley for two years, and hated it. They were well south of Susanville, but too close for Torger. Known for its maximum level prison, it is tucked away in a harsh and cold isolated corner of California. The population was always low in this section of the most populous state. When they came to the edge of the valley, he told everyone to stop for the night. There were protests that there was still sunlight, but he insisted. They had killed two more bears, rocs, and cottols in the past two days, and it was a relief to have an open valley on one side of them so the sentries could stay focused on the east side of the camp.

The next morning they got an early start, eating breakfast at sunrise and completely packed up before the sun came over the tree tops. They stayed to the edge of the forest and walked south as quickly as the children would allow. He only allowed two stops of ten minutes each and made them force march until it was too dark to see. In mid May that far north there was fifteen hours of daylight. Everyone set up tents quickly and fell asleep exhausted, without dinner. Torger let them sleep in the next day and eat a large and leisurely breakfast. Only his brother understood his need to have walked through that area as quickly as possible and not camp out anywhere near the imaginary city.

They continued walking southwest for two more days before they finally found what they were looking for. Torger stood in front of the large river and looked at all forty-five dwarves and six humans. “We are near. But we have finally come to the part where I must come clean to all of you. We humans know gold was discovered somewhere near here. This is what we call the American River. But we don’t know exactly where it’s at. Only a few of you dwarves have been let in on the secret of why we abandoned the silver mine. It’s because we believe there is a gold mine somewhere near here. But it could take a couple of weeks to find it, so be patient with us.”

A dwarf miner stepped forward. “You mean to tell me we’re looking for a gold mine, and you didn’t broker a deal with the elves to clear out the leprechauns?”

“Uhh, What leprechauns, and why do we need elves?”

Mass pandemonium broke out. Dwarves yelled and cussed and the humans had to make a shield to protect Torger from the rocks being thrown at him. It took several minutes for Stone fist and his assistant to calm the other dwarves down. They were the only two who knew about Torger’s plan.

Stone Fist stood on a large rock once everyone was calm enough to hear him. “Listen up! I didn’t think about Torger not knowing about leprechauns, so let’s make everything clear. First, Torger, whenever you see three leprechauns together, there is a pot of gold nearby. But we’re not looking for three, we’re looking for a hundred. Second, leprechauns are little magical creatures. They can find gold much faster than we dwarves can, and we’re damn good at it. But as magical creatures, we dwarves can’t fight them. We rely on strength to win our battles. We dwarves have a standing agreement with the elves: If we find a gold mine, we hire the elves because it will almost always be protected by leprechauns. They’re indigenous to Nuva. But in battles we dwarves always come to a stalemate with the little buggers, and when we do kill one, it respawns a week later far away, so we can never be rid of them. So we hire the elves. The rate is to give them thirty pounds of refined gold one year after they clear out the cave.

“As for all my fellow dwarves. Have no fear about finding the cave. Torger in his wisdom has called for Strong Arm and the dwarves of Calico to meet us here. If all goes well, they will be in the area in the next day or two, and our search can cover more ground that way.”

Stone Fist couldn’t continue from the shouts of protest. “You want us to share our gold with another village? Never! Our find. Our keep.”

The crowd broke out into chanting “Our find. Our keep.”

It took Torger a long time to get them to listen to him again. When they finally did he said “Think about what you’re saying! More dwarves are just south of here, and if they find the gold first, they will keep it. We are less than seventeen months from the tyters returning, and when they do you’ll have to find another gold mine. I don’t think there will be enough time for two villages working together to get all the gold out. There should be enough for everybody. But there is no reason to delay in looking for the cave and the leprechauns. I want to send out three groups of scouts, five dwarves each, to find the cave and Calico. We regulators will hunt for food and protect the village while you look. As Stone Fist said, you dwarves are very good at finding gold. Much better than we humans are.”