Chapter 39

Revenge

They all appeared in the mayor’s house of Home. This time all five of them were angry. Antic hated pain, and that had been his worst death. Arden hated he had failed to protect his wife Jex, Brun hated he just found out his max mana was 100, Graul hated he just lost six unused ability points, and Jex hated she just lost the Bow.

But before they could all get in a proper yell and cuss, the Bow reappeared next to Jex, in its black velvet case. She was stunned. When Yiloding gave it to her, he didn’t tell her it would return to her, and would never be more than two hundred feet from her without reappearing at her feet. Everyone was in too much awe of the magical properties of the Bow to care about anything else. All their anger dissipated. But it became awkward when they were all standing in the mayor’s house completely nude when Torger, Rome, and Guntrink all rushed in with weapons drawn ready to kill.

When they saw the situation, Torger explained “As a mayor, I sense intrusions into whatever dwarf village I’m in. I sensed five angry assassins just enter the house. You all have murder in your hearts. What happened?”

Jex tried to cover herself up with her hands, then ran to her room, and the men said they would be right back and went to get clothes on. A few minutes later when they came out wearing bed sheets, Graul explained.

“We tried to eliminate the Giant Moles. I’m sure Rome filled you in on what happened when he returned here. We were doing great with the moles, but there’s this family of huge killer bunnies that got us.”

Torger looked skeptical. “Those huge six foot rabbits are serious enemies? Really guys? What actually happened?”

Graul continued “No seriously. We didn’t get to fight the six footers, we were taken out by their kids, the four footers. With some help from the moles. I know that sounds ridiculous, but we need a lot more firepower.”

Torger answered “No. You need to be helping the dwarves and elves get along. We need them as allies. Your side trip into the cave didn’t work out, but that’s not the most important thing. Jex and Arden, you need to go back and make sure the dwarves and elves aren’t killing each other.”

Arden argued “That’s a problem Torger. We all just lost all of our gear. We have no weapons or armor.”

Torger took an exasperated sigh. “Rome told me about your arrows Jex, and I’ve had Guntrink working on making us more armor. But we’ve got a long ways to go. We’re not going to be able to take on that cave again for a while. When Rome returned, he had eight unused ability points, and spent them all on mana. He can now send five of us to any ally village.”

They looked on with disbelief, and Rome had to explain what Teleport 3 does. Torger continued “I’ve turned Rome into a travelling merchant. Every day he teleports to Indio to pick up iron ore, then to Rich Fields to sell some of it to Strong Arm, then here to give the rest to Guntrink. His travelling has kept four dwarves of Indio from walking those trips over and over again, saving us money on purchases. The iron is coming in so quickly, we didn’t have enough gold to keep up with the purchases, so I had to sell all of our potions to Kirsk. But the benefit is both Guntrink and Strong Arm have been working on a special project for me. Guntrink, would you get one of these items?”

Guntrink left and came back a few minutes later. They all watched as he slowly and with pride withdrew a cloth bundle from a magic back pack, then handed it to Jex. She unwrapped it and stared in disbelief. It was an arrow, with roc feathers as usual, but the shaft was steel, and the arrowhead was refined gold.

Torger beamed with pride. “Both gold mines are doing well. Morale is up in both villages, our borders are safe, and production is high. Rome when you make your trips tomorrow, will you ask the weavers in the other villages to make clothes for our friends? And they’ll need leather to go under their new steel armor.”

He looked at Guntrink. “When can you have new sets done?”

“Since supply isn’t a problem anymore, between me and Strong Arm we could be done in eight days.”

“Great. In eight days you can go take your revenge.”

Graul said “That might be a problem. Antic and I still need weapons.”

Guntrink said “The eight days includes a steel spear, shield and sword. But they won’t have the added magic bonus that you had before.”

They accepted the situation for what it was.

The Regulators were bored for a week. Torger kept busy running the village, Rome made his daily trades, and Jex tested out her new arrows. As powerful as the Master Bow was, the shafts didn’t break on impact like the billik legs had, and by having gold arrowheads they doubled the power of the three magic spells. Even a glancing blow with one of the arrows would cause ninety-six damage points to a target from the magic alone. She told Torger the design was genius. The problem was gold is soft, and each arrowhead would be blunted after the first shot, and when she retrieved it and shot it again, it would completely dull the arrowhead. But between Strong Arm and Guntrink, they had made twenty-nine of the arrows.

After eight days had passed, Torger came to present them with their new clothes, armor and weapons. Talk about serious upgrades! Antic’s spear had become a halberd, Rome and Brun were given gold staffs, and Torger had a new mace for himself. It wasn’t as good as Red Fury had been, but it was the first time he had a weapon of his own in months. He also received a steel shield. He was used to a two handed sword, not a mace and shield, but he did OK with them. Arden received sixteen shotgun shells, and Torger said the production from mines had been very good. Antic stayed behind while Rome cast Teleport 3 on the others.

They arrived in Small Hammer. The shield was still up, and the caves looked undisturbed. An hour and a half later Antic appeared, and ten minutes later Rome appeared. The five Regulators began walking to Kellogg Hill once again. They knew all the Giant Moles had respawned by then, but this time they were ready for what they faced.

They entered the tunnel the next morning at daybreak. When they made it to the first intersection they were attacked by two moles. Two shots from Jex ended their lives in a hurry. They worked their way through the tunnels, Jex doing most of the damage, and Antic taking a little too much joy in his revenge on the rodents. The halberd prevented deep thrusts, but that also allowed him to more quickly extract the spear point and stab again. The axe came in handy for chopping off legs, but the hook had no use against the vermin.

Torger struggled getting used to the mace and shield, and did more blocking than beating, but by the end of the day he was at level nine with clubs. That was poor compared to his level eleven with one handed swords and level thirty-three with two handed swords.

Jex had finally reached level fifty with bows and her shots with the Bow became fast, fluid and powerful. The magical properties of the Bow doubled arrow accuracy and speed and allowed her to see in the dark. She looked like she could rival the Greek goddess.

When they had killed fifty-five moles, they exited the caves. It was dark outside and they were tired but happy. Fifty-five was the number Rome had set before they started, because that meant everyone but himself and Torger had maxed out on killing Giant Moles. When they were outside they saw that each of them had gained seven ability points on the day. They all invested it into health, except Antic who was already maxed out at 500. He bought Cure 2. Graul, Arden and Jex hit their max of 500, and spent the last one on stamina. Torger and Rome were tied as the weakest ones of the group, but they were the only ones who would be gaining experience when they killed the next forty-five moles the following day.

In the morning they didn’t make it far when they were attacked by three moles. Everything had been working exactly as it had the first time they fought in the caves, and they knew where they were going to get attacked next, which made it easy to get through everything so quickly. There were no surprises, and after killing the next group of three they moved on to the giant cavern. Just as it had been before, there were thirty-nine moles and two rabbit parents, and five rabbit kids, at four feet tall. These indigenous monsters were too predictable. They didn’t seem to breed and grow stronger like the prey did, but it was easy experience.

Standing on the dirt ledge, Brun cast Fire 3 at a parent. Its fur caught on fire, and four fireballs shot out hitting four of the kids whose fur caught on fire. They jumped toward the group, but two came too close to the tar pit and caught it on fire. As the moles rushed them and kids jumped at them Jex got three arrows away killing three moles, and Arden fired five shots, severely injuring five moles.

Then they turned and ran. They were expecting the chase so they ran to the longest narrow tunnel they had seen. The moles had to attack one at a time, which Jex shot one at a time until there was a complete blockage on that side. Arden shot the ones on the other side of the tunnel until there was a blockage there. As expected the living moles began removing the bodies while the young rabbits burrowed into their area of the tunnel.

Graul and Torger kept two occupied with their shields, and Antic kept stabbing one in the face with the halberd. Brun cast Poison 2 at one of them, and the spell made three of them get sick and lose half their max health and stamina, and lose one health point every four seconds. Then he cast Poison 2 again and all the rabbits were sick. Rome kept casting Shield 1 between Jex and the rabbits, and she and Arden were ready for more moles to appear.

Graul, Torger and Antic kept getting scratches, but their high health made it so the damage was weak. Brun cast Poison 1 once at the end of the tunnel on Arden’s side, infecting three moles on that side that were coming at them. Jex had three on her side and she and Arden dropped those six, and Arden reloaded his last three shots. Jex saw she still had twenty-three arrows. Survival would be up to her.

Brun was nearly out of mana and knew he had nothing more to contribute. Arden saw the two unchallenged rabbits breaking through Rome’s last shield, and he was out of mana. Arden killed those two rabbits with shots, then turned and shot the one that had pounced on Torger and was trying to bite through his armor.

Jex shot the two who were fighting Antic and Graul. Those rabbits died and both men were bloody. Arden, Antic, Graul, and Torger began casting Cure 1 on themselves while Jex alternated shooting the incoming Giant Moles.

The process took six minutes. After two minutes she had run out of arrows and the three armored men fought the remaining moles. When it was over, all three were at ten stamina, two strength, and a hundred health. They sat around for an hour waiting for mana to recharge and casting Cure 1’s. But their Strength and stamina were recovering too slowly to take on the parent rabbits. Torger had mixed emotions about selling all of their potions. They really needed the potions then, but if he hadn’t traded them away they wouldn’t have armor and would all be dead. They had no choice but to go out and sleep.

The fighting of moles allowed Torger and Rome to each gain six more ability points, and killing the five young rabbits gave each of them another 570 exp. Torger and Rome spent all their ability points on strength, bringing them both to twenty.

Rome couldn’t explain why he had done that. He was a white mage and hadn’t been involved in hand to hand combat in a year. But he was tired of being a weakling in the group and wanted to hold his own. His contribution in casting many Shield 1’s for months had finally paid off and he learned Shield 2, and Brun had learned Poison 3. They were confident and prepared when they entered the cave the next day.

They walked past dozens of dead Giant Moles along the way to the cavern. When they arrived the tar fire was out and the rabbit fur was restored. The parents sat in the center of the circle watching them. Jex took up her Bow and shot at one. It had a lot of confidence in being able to hop out of the way of an arrow from the one hundred foot distance, but it underestimated the speed of the Bow of the Hawk feature of the Master Bow. The arrow hit its hind leg before it cleared away far enough. The gold arrowhead amplified the three spells, and although the gold was blunted, it took off a third of the total health. That enraged both of them and they hopped half way up the dirt incline in a second.

They were close enough for Brun to cast Poison 3, and both rabbits were surrounded by a thick black cloud. They both quickly hopped out of the cloud, but the damage had been done. Their max health was cut to a third of the original 400, and they crapped liquid pellets. The description of Poison 3 told Brun it infected three targets with dysentery and cut their max health to 1/3 of the original.

The next mighty jump made one land on Jex, right after it took an arrow to the heart. Its heavy bulk came down on her hard, and even though it was dead before it reached her, the weight crushed her. She felt ribs crack and broke her left arm trying to brace her fall. The other one had aimed for and landed on Brun, who had caused them so much damage. He had the same results as Jex, but the one that landed on him was still alive.

Torger, Graul, and Antic ran at it, while Arden tried to free Jex and Rome tried to free Brun. The living rabbit bit Brun in the neck, killing him instantly, then hopped away before Rome could push it, and then down to its original position at the bottom. The five healthy men rolled the dead rabbit off Jex, and saw she was struggling to breathe. They all cast Cure 1 on her, and her ribs snapped back to their original positions, but her ulna was still poking out of her arm.

They each cast Cure 1 on her again, and the bone went back into the skin but didn’t fully mend the break. By then the rabbit had sensed the two dangerous humans were no longer a threat and hopped at the group again. Torger and Graul saw it coming, and shouted for everyone to watch out, but the rabbit was too fast. They blocked it with their shields but it wasn’t aiming for them. It landed on Arden’s back who was trying to console Jex. It knocked him down, bit him on the back of the neck, then turned and bit Jex’s neck before anyone could react quickly enough.

The sick and injured rabbit underestimated the biggest and strongest human’s speed. Antic thrust the halberd at its back leg before it hopped away. It made it down the incline and back to its starting point, but it was injured and moving more slowly.

Torger watched the Bow disappear a few seconds after Jex disappeared. There were four left against an injured bunny. Surely this couldn’t be so hard, right?

They looked down the incline, and it looked very steep. Rome tried casting Shield 2 at it, but it was too far away. Antic looked at the predicament- they couldn’t get to it, and it was healing and curing at the same time by eating a mole. If they waited long it would be at full health again. Antic walked to the edge and tumbled down the dirt slope. He got up and rushed the rabbit.

Graul and Rome followed, but Torger couldn’t overcome his acrophobia. He watched from near the wall as the rabbit jumped out of the way of Antic. He chased it, and it turned and pounced back at him. Antic held his halberd firmly, and it impaled itself through a front leg. Antic got knocked down and the rabbit bit him on the neck.

As Antic was dying, Rome cast Shield 2 at it, surrounding it. It slammed into the shield and was punished with a Lightning 1 spell, then slammed at it again shattering it. But by then it was too late for the rabbit. Graul had crossed the distance and drove his sword into the good back leg, all the way to the hilt. He let go when it turned to bite him, and blocked with his shield, then Rome cast Shield 2 at it again.

When it broke free, Rome cast Slow 1, and Graul cast Shield 1 in front of himself. The rabbit jumped over the shield, and Graul ducked and turned to run. But as he did he saw Torger throw his mace down into the pit. Rome saw it too, and again cast Shield 2. He was out of mana after that spell, and he had no weapon and no way to get out of the pit. Graul would kill it or they would all die.

Graul picked up the mace as he heard the magic shield crack. He guessed the sucker had to be close to dead, with Brun’s Poison 3, Graul’s sword in its back leg, a stab wound in a leg from Antic’s halberd, and three Lightning 1 spells. He took a huge risk he was unsure about. He dropped his steel shield and held the mace like a baseball bat. Just as he got the proper grip he swung as hard as he could. The rabbit jumped at Graul. The timing was perfect, and the rabbit’s bared fangs were broken off from the ten pounds of spiked steel. The rabbit got its face turned away from the impact, but its body slammed into Graul. He got knocked backwards several feet.

Graul lay on his back, barely breathing from a cracked rib and collar bone. He began to cast Cure 1 on himself, but saw the rabbit twitching. It looked semi-conscious like he was, and the winner would be the first one to get back to his feet. Graul pointed at the rabbit and cast the strongest spell he had, Lightning 1. It did little damage to the rabbit. Graul thought they were going to lose, but through blurry vision he saw Rome, wearing no armor and a simple mage’s cloak, run at the rabbit with Graul’s round shield. The white mage picked up the shield over his head and brought the edge down as hard as he could on the rabbit’s skull. It stopped twitching, and Rome grinned ear to ear knowing he had won in a battle.

Chapter 40

Tensions

Rome checked his Experience and saw he gained an ability point from fighting the two rabbits, which meant Torger had too. But it did him no good waiting for three more minutes while watching Graul lay on the ground in pain. After three minutes Rome had regained enough mana to cast Cure 1, and Graul had done the same for himself. Four minutes later they both cast it again, while Graul held Brun’s gold staff.

Meanwhile Torger went to their camp and brought back the duffle bag and two back packs they had left. He brought out the rope and tied one end around himself and threw the rest down. He called down “Search the area for hidden treasure, and our stuff should be in here too! Then I’ll pull you up.”

Rome and Graul searched the area and found their equipment buried in the loose dirt. They kept looking, hoping there was something more to the pit than just crude oil. The fumes were nauseating. During the fight they were too focused on survival, but after a couple minutes of rest their eyes and lungs were burning. On a hunch Graul checked the area where the parents kept returning to. He dug in the dirt and found it was not compacted like the rest of the floor. He dug some more and exclaimed “This makes no sense at all!”

Rome came over and looked where Graul was digging. There were two giant, multi-colored eggs buried under the ground. He said “Easter bunnies? Really? This place is crazy!”

When they lifted the one foot eggs out of the hole, Graul called up to Torger, “Should we break them open?”

“Yeah. I don’t see why not.”

Graul grabbed Inferno. His sword felt good in his hands again. He swung and hit the egg. The shell cracked, and he started pulling pieces of it away. When he removed most of the shell, he reached in and pulled out the treasure. He held it up for Torger to see, and Torger couldn’t believe it. It was a huge containment stone glowing purple. He asked them to open the other egg, and it also had a purple containment stone.

They searched the area for another hour, but found nothing. Then Torger pulled up Graul, then Rome using the rope. They walked out of the tunnels, then agreed Rome could walk back in to claim it for himself. When he did, he got an internal map of it and had to activate each shield of five separate entrances. They camped for the night just inside the cave so they wouldn’t have to set up a night watch. That didn’t work because the magic shields were trapping in the fumes and the caves began filling with natural gas. Rome shut off the shields and they walked to each entrance stacking stones in front of them, with small gaps to allow air to flow through. It was around midnight by the time they were done.

In the morning they began the walk back to Long Beach. There was still plenty of sunlight when they arrived to the scene of Edina yelling at Baybil and Quickly yelling at Edina.

Torger walked up and asked “What happened? Things were going great from what I was told.”

Quickly yelled at Torger. “What do you think you’re doing? Who do you think you are? You’re no god to be screwing up people’s lives! Get out of our business and stay out!” He stormed off.

Torger turned to Baybil for help, but he had a deep scowl. “During training, which none of us should have ever agreed to, Edina’s elf shot my dwarf in the calf! We will go our own ways and stay away from each other. Come, Torger, leave the snobs to fend for themselves.”

Torger looked to Edina and asked what happened, but Baybil yelled “Mayor! As tribal chief I am ordering you to leave them. Come to the dwarf camp.”

Torger was torn. If he went to the dwarf camp, the elves would no longer be allies, and vice versa. He looked to Rome and Graul who just shrugged. He gave Edina an apologetic look and walked to follow Baybil with his head hanging down, but whispered to his friends “Stay with her. Containment stones.”

When they got to the dwarf camp Baybil yelled at him some more. “Dwarves and elves don’t mix, Torger. You thought you had a good idea for the children to train together, but the elves protect elves, and dwarves protect dwarves. You do not have the authority or knowledge to change our ways. I’m tempted to fire you as a mayor right now, but I will wait until the Council of Mayors in January. If you hadn’t done such an outstanding job, I would fire you right now. Let me make this clear. Leave the elves alone.”

Torger was full of anger, confusion, and self preservation. “I don’t know what happened. Weren’t things going OK? And if not, why did the combined training continue?”

Baybil paused. “The training was better than we thought, but it was obviously a fluke, something new and different for a few weeks. Quickly and I, and that elfa, drew four simmets up onto the bank like we had every day for two weeks. The four young dwarves blocked and sliced, the elves stood safely in the back and shot arrows. One of the dwarves blocked a bite and stepped to the side to swing his axe into its head, but an elf moved to the same side and didn’t pay attention to what he was doing. He shot the arrow and hit the dwarf in the back of the leg, with no warning. Of course the dwarf fell down and Quickly ran to kill the beast, but before he got there the simmet bit the child on the stomach. It’s the elf’s fault he’s laying in the tent.”

That was bad news. Torger asked “Why didn’t he die? A simmet bite to the stomach would cause massive internal bleeding to a child.”

“Because Quickly killed it before it could bite again.”

“I meant, who cured the child?”

“Oh, well, Edina did, but that doesn’t make it right. The elves are too arrogant to say they’re not good enough fighters to keep up with the dwarves.”

“Too arrogant? How many black simmets have the children killed?”

“That’s not the point Torger.”

“How many?”

Baybil sighed. “They are at twenty and a half to their max.”

“Twenty and a half? You’re telling me that nine children have killed nearly two hundred simmets without adult help, and you’re throwing that kind of success away? Baybil how many times can a group of nine dwarves kill four beasts three levels higher than themselves without an injury?”

Baybil looked away. “Baybil, has that ever happened? Most dwarves at Home are level twenty-two. Pick nine of them and tell them to go attack four level twenty-five trolls. Would you do that?”

“If it needed to be done, but I wouldn’t like it.”

“Training is necessary Baybil. Taking chances is part of growth. These children didn’t attack one group of four, they attacked forty groups of four. That’s three groups a day. They are having incredible success, and there’s one hiccup and you want to throw it away. And what was the elves response to an elf mistake? She ran over and cured the boy, probably used a cure two spell, which you don’t have. And she has a lot more mana than you. You and Quickly would have ran out of mana before that boy was cured, he would have bled out and died if not for her. Accept that one elf made a mistake and resume training tomorrow.”

“No Torger. We tried it and it didn’t work. The elves didn’t have to save his life if they hadn’t endangered it.”

“You said elves Baybil. Plural. What happened?”

“The elves cast cure spells to save him, but it’s still their fault.”

“How many cast cure spells Baybil?”

“Go to bed Torger. We’re done.”

Torger sat up as the first watch. He stayed in the dwarf camp, and looked at Graul sitting in the elf camp. Graul looked excited like he wanted to talk, but both brothers knew better than to enter the other camp.

The next morning Torger was the first one awake. He was cooking breakfast before the others were dressed, and in the elf camp Rome was doing the same. Both men tried to be cheerful to their camps. The kids were cheerful back, but the adults didn’t look happy.

After breakfast Torger watched the elves, Graul, and Rome go to the river to find simmets, and a few minutes later the dwarves walked to a different section, but he saw the kids looking at each other across the long distance as they were walking away.

Quickly and Baybil stood on the bank and watched the young dwarves slowly walk along the bank looking for hidden simmets. After a few minutes one pointed at the mud and yelled “Archers here!” He then sheepishly looked back at the trainers and said “Oh, I forgot. What do we do?”

Quickly said “Act like a dwarf. Be a man and go get it to chase you.”

The boy nervously walked down the bank and slapped his axe into the water. The simmet didn’t move, thinking it was still hidden. The boy walked a little closer, and the simmet popped out of the mud and ran at him. The boy turned to run up the bank, but the simmet was faster. The others saw he wasn’t going to make it, so they ran down and all attacked. Quickly yelled for them to each take on one simmet, but in the heat of battle they didn’t hear or didn’t comprehend the words.

Quickly ran down the bank and Torger and Baybil each cast Lightning 1 twice, hitting each simmet once. But the damage wasn’t enough to slow them. Baybil ran down the bank to help, and Torger cast Shield 1 four times, once in front of each simmet. He had enough mana left to hit each simmet once each with Slow 1, but it was too late. Quickly arrived and killed the first one, but the other three each were attacking the four dwarf children. The battle was too quick for them, and without the support of archers the three simmets had a firm bite on a leg of three of the four dwarves. Quickly and Baybil easily killed one more each, then killed the last one.

They dragged the injured two boys and one girl up the bank. Baybil had used up his mana on the two Lighting 1 spells, and Torger had used his on the ten spells he had cast. The injuries weren’t serious, and they had to wait two minutes before casting the first Cure 1 spells, then cast them once every four minutes.

The wounds had a lot of bleeding, but were basically four deep puncture wounds in each leg, having bitten the thighs above the greaves. Torger saw that Quickly was visibly irritated with the dwarves for such a catastrophic failure, but he kept his mouth shut. By the look on their faces, the four dwarves knew they would receive a brutal tongue lashing once they were back at camp.

While Torger and Baybil waited for their mana to recharge, Quickly walked downstream until he found another simmet. He ran down and killed it, then killed the next one to attack him with his steel sword, but the last two he bashed in the head with his shield, knocking them unconscious.

He dragged the beasts back to the other dwarves and said “Today you will fight like dwarves have always fought. You will work as a team and kill these two when they wake up. I need two of you blocking, and two of you attacking.”

Before Torger and Baybil finished the cures, the simmets woke up. They were groggy at first, but Quickly insisted they be left alone until they were fully alert. After a minute, they ran and attacked the two nearest dwarf kids. They blocked with shields, while the other two came around the sides and swung axes at the heads. The simmets didn’t die right away, and tried to bite the attackers, but they blocked with their shields. However, they left their axes embedded in the simmet necks and couldn’t attack again. The other two dwarves finished off the foes with another axe strike to the necks.

Quickly gave a nod of approval, but Torger was unsure that was such a good strategy. He said “Well done everyone. But my brother and I have a different way of doing that. Quickly, may I borrow your sword?”

Quickly looked troubled, but with a nod from Baybil he traded his sword for Torger’s mace. Torger went down to the river, found more simmets, killed two and knocked out two. He dragged them back just as Quickly had done. He positioned himself behind them, and asked two dwarf kids to block with their shields but not to attack.

When the simmets shook off the sleep, they attacked the two dwarf kids. They both kept blocking without counter attacking. Torger ran up to one and cut off a back leg, then jumped away when it tried to bite him. He yelled “Come block again!”

The dwarf ran to the front and drew attention to himself, keeping the shield near the reptile’s face. Torger ran to the other one and cut off a back leg, and ran away when it tried to bite him. He ran to the first and cut off the other back leg, then the back leg of the second. Then he called out “Fall back!”

The dwarves walked backwards with the shields held in front of them. The simmets followed, but at a crawl instead of a fast run. Torger looked at the four dwarf kids and said “Now go finish them.”

The battle was much easier, since the simmets could only run or turn at half the speed they had been moving at. After they were dead Quickly growled and walked away, but Baybil looked at Torger with appreciation for the new strategy.

The kids cut open all of the stomachs looking for treasure, and found two copper coins and a silver coin. Not much of a reward for twelve dead simmets, but it made them happy. When they got back to the dwarf camp, Torger saw Graul and Rome look at him from the elf camp, and shake their heads. It was a sign that things did not go well that day for the elves either.

The kids had learned to train and kill together, and now they were expected to know entirely different tactics. The lack of cooperation between the races made it clear why they had been stuck in the middle ages for thousands of years. Torger tried to change them for the benefit of all, but his plan failed.

The next day Torger once again watched the dwarf kids struggle and fail to kill the four simmets. Once again Baybil and Quickly had to rescue them and cure them. Torger had seen enough. While the dwarves were looking for another batch of simmets, he walked upstream to the elves. He arrived to see the elf kids running away from simmets and trying to shoot arrows behind them. Graul and Rome stood by watching as Edina tried shouting instructions, but eventually she had to intervene and shoot two of the four simmets.

Graul and Rome saw Torger approach, and they all went back to camp without speaking a word. As they were packing their gear they all discussed what a disaster the training had become. The kids were running out of simmets to kill for experience, and they had no clue how to fight without being intermingled. The adults were trying to undo three weeks of training, and retrain them in the old ways with less than two weeks left before they ran out of chances to get experience. At the rate things were going, Torger expected them to be there for another three weeks, continually killing simmets just for practice without gaining experience.

Rome used Teleport 3 on Torger and Graul, sending them to Home, then waited ten minutes to use Teleport 1 for himself. None of the trainers noticed they were gone for a few more hours.