Chapter 8: Round Two Part 2

Cato complained in a loud, whining voice,

“I’ve carried this stretcher all over the damn forest, through town, and they had bodies of the vermin here the whole time?”

Omara winced at this as Pellet squawked in protest from her perch atop Winnie’s chest on her stretcher and Nixen replied in a tired voice,

“Yes, Cato. And you would be wise not to complain loudly about how they suffered an attack and now it’s an inconvenience for you. Here’s your first free lesson in diplomacy, don’t piss them off.”

Cato’s face grew sullen, but he quit caterwauling and stubbornly dragged the litter forward with his party until they were within a few yards of the Lord and his people.

He dropped his litter with a swear to the gods and started rubbing at his forearms. Nixen kept pace easily, with Omara bringing up the rear tiredly. Nixen set their litter down more gently and nodded to the Lord’s party.

Lord Tom nodded back and addressed the shorter armored figure of the dwarf,

“Good morrow, Ser…Nixen? Was it? My Luciloo gave me a briefing before you set out. My apologies for not coming myself to see you off.”

The dwarf waved this away diplomatically,

“Not to worry, Lord Tom. I am aware affairs of the ruling are many and varied, and we all have breakfast. We have solved your mob problem at the burrow outside town.”

“We have one gravely injured, but what happened here? We saw the piles of tomb-vermin outside town. The quest description given did not report the mobs were not this numerous or dangerous.”

Lord Tom’s expression was mixed with anger, grief, and embarrassment as he replied,

“Those damn vermin. What we reported to your guild was accurate and good, but our luck was not. A migration decided to happen the same day you left to deal with the interlopers. Captain Lowry and I have been dealing with it since shortly after your party left this morning.”

Farmer Jenkins piped in,

“You got the varmints, then?”

Lord Tom waved the farmer to silence. Nixen nodded absently in confirmation. The dwarf’s eyes narrowed at the timing of the migration and the quest,

“How…fortuitous. They might have taken over the burrow if we had not been here to mop up the bad-gir we encountered battling the interlopers. Then you would have a budding dungeon on your doorstep. How many dead?”

Joclyn paled deeply at this announcement. Captain Lowry’s glower was added to with a beautifully purple, pulsing vein in his forehead as he stood and fully faced the dwarf.

Lord Tom glanced to his Captain, waiting for an eruption. When none came, he responded in a calm voice,

“The gods have a wicked sense of humor about these things, or at least my father seemed to think so. Three dead and thirteen more wounded, all told. I find little “fortuitous” about any of this and will be submitting an inquiry to the Knowets about the timing. They are supposed to be able to predict these things, but we had no prior warning.”

Nixen was gazing at the stretcher covered with a blanket and the owlet who was pacing around trying to burrow into the blanket to be closer to Winnie. He gently gazed at the stretcher on the ground as he responded.

“Too many. If you need religious services, I will stand in where needed after I see to my own wounded.”

Nixen continued,

“We were given no warning either. The Knowets are usually pretty on top of getting word to the general guild members about migrations. It should have been on the seals for our region when we picked up the quest.”

“This whole situation stinks. I’ll make my inquiries shortly, and you can as well. We’ll be needing that reclamation disc, my Lord.”

Lord Tom looked confused but nodded hesitantly. He returned to his camp desk, where Captain Lowry had visibly calmed himself. Then, rummaging in a drawer, he pulled the disk out and returned to the dwarf.

Handing over the disc. He asked,

“Wasn’t this for a reclamation team? They had been talking about them when I left the academy, but I hadn’t heard they had started using them.”

Nixen nodded and twisted the knobs on either side of the disc.

“In the past year, they got through the R&D red tape. As a result, they have different settings for various needs to be satisfied. It’s always about cost-effectiveness with the more…frugal higher-ups.”

“The basic issue is rather affordable, but every additional need is to be met with further expense. I’m glad I paid the extra today.”

“We need to get Winnie to the mages guild, and we both have questions for the Knowets. So brace yourself, my lord, good Captain. The Knowets can be…quite trying, especially if they are good at their job.”

Pellet squawked her agreement from her perch atop one of the stretchers. Nixen tried to ignore the panic in that squawk, pausing, the dwarf looked at farmer Jenkins and said,

“Try not to piss him off when he gets here. The knowets generally like to screw with NPCs, sorry.”

Jenkins looked resigned to this statement but cast a hopeful glance at Lord Tom, who responded to the unasked question,

“You are representing Adder county as a witness to the first mobs, so you’ll have to remain for now.”

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Jenkins nodded,

“Aye, M’lord.”

Nixen pressed in on both knobs to either side of the disc, and with clicks, they depressed. A sinuous line of light crossed the center of the disc. Snapping the disk in half at the line, Nixen tossed the halves a couple of yards away from both parties in opposite directions.

The pieces landed on the ground about five yards apart, and lightning started to sputter from both pieces, scorching the ground around the broken disk pieces.

Cato muttered,

“Great, more lightning.”

Omara shushed him, trying to focus on what was happening.

The sputters turned into coruscating columns that leaped to each other and connected in a fence of lightning taller than Lord Tom. Everyone present except Nixen and Jenkins leaped backward with various oaths and a yip from Joclyn.

After a few moments of nothing else happening Jenkins spoke up,

“This is impressive but is anything else supposed to happen?”

Nixen replied,

“Not quickly. There’s a reason these are expensive.”

Amid the lightning field strands twisted together into a wheel of sticks pulsating in a circular pattern with letters underneath that read,

LOADING. . .

Nixen sighed.

“This will take longer than any of us want. Get comfortable for a bit.”

All present groaned and started to move around to get comfortable while they waited. Farmer Jenkins, Captain Lowry, Castellan Joclyn, and Lord Tom moved to the camp table as Lord Tom fished a pack of cards out of the camp desk and started dealing them out.

Nixen sighed. The dwarf dug in one of their belt pouches for a pipe and tabac. Packing the pipe, the dwarf fumbled in the pouch for a match to light the pipe when Omara walked over and offered a flickering flame on the end of her finger.

Smiling at the dwarf as they puffed contentedly on the pipe, Omara walked back over to Cato, who looked as bored as the rest. She asked the rogue,

“Mumbledey peg?”

Cato’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He asked,

“Stakes?”

Omara rolled her eye’s at this and responded,

“I’m just trying to get better at something other than magic, but fine. A silver a match?”

Cato grinned,

“Deal. You remember the rules?”

Omara let out an exasperated sigh,

“If you’ll abide by them. We stand with feet at shoulder width, side on with our forward feet touching. We take turns tossing the dagger at the back foot of the other person.”

“The knife must stick in the ground within a blade length of the back foot after one spin. The foot is then moved to the blade’s edge, and it’s the other person’s turn. The first one to fall over or stab the other person loses. Stabbings pay out triple.”

Cato clapped in appreciation and corrected,

“Newbies payout tenfold for stabbings. Am I gonna make a gold today?”

Omara responded,

“Are you gonna piss me off more than you usually do?”

Cato laughed,

“Fair enough, challenged goes first.”

Nixen looked on as they went back and forth, throwing sharpened steel at each other at awkward angles. As the game progressed, Omara kept up until her feet were twisted around each other like a pretzel, and Cato’s feet were spread all the way apart. He was only an inch or two off the ground.

Omara attempted a throw in her twisted position, but the momentum of the knife leaving her hand threw her balance too far off, and she tumbled to the side. Cato snatched the flying steel out of the air as it was about to sink into his thigh and flexed his legs hard. Shooting to his feet with the knife in hand, he panted as he wiped the sweat from his head with his offhand. Omara shouted at him from the ground,

“How are you that flexible?!”

Cato waggled his eyebrows and panted,

“Want some lessons?”

Omara scowled as she got to her feet, brushing the dirt from her clothing,

“I’ll teach you how not to be an ass.”

The next three rounds of the game continued in the same manner. The card game between the others was boring. Lord Tom refused to gamble against his people, so the stakes were simple pebbles plucked from the ground or bits of twigs.

Nixen watched the steely competition with one eye on the stretcher they had carried as everyone waited for the call upon support from the adventurers guild to be answered.

Cato finally grew bored of taunting Omara and looked to Nixen, asking,

“Does it normally take this long?”

The dwarf continued puffing contentedly on the pipe as they replied,

“For a standard reclamation? No, that’s usually answered within a few moments of the call. This is taking longer and will be much more expensive because we requested a meeting to debrief for the quest.”

“Instead of waiting to get back to the outpost, we have a Knowet coming to take these reports. Winnie also needs direct transport for aid. Even Jeph’s benevolence has its limits. Gold makes the wheels of bureaucracy turn only slightly faster, though.”

Omara frowned as she responded to this last bit,

“It seems odd that the paladin of a God shouldn’t get a little more leeway from their god.”

Nixen snorted,

“We get a bit more favor in compensation for our efforts, but we are also held to stricter account in how it’s doled out. So she’ll be frozen that way until she is given into the care of someone that can help her, at my request, but that bill comes due eventually.

“I really don’t want to build another grand temple for asking for divine help to grease the wheels. I love my God, but that is a large headache, and grand quests to get out from under that kind of favor are too rare.”

Cato gawked as Lord Tom looked up from his game with a quizzical expression, and Jenkins raised an eyebrow. However, Captain Lowry remained focused on the cards in hand as if the small pile of twigs and rocks in the center of the table were his next month’s pay.

“Another?…”

The Lord asked.

Nixen grimaced as if a bit of dung had gotten into the pinch of tabac in their pipe and muttered,

“Well, I’ll have to answer for that later…I miss being able to spout blasphemy freely, some days.”

Cato opened his mouth to ask for more details about that interesting tidbit as the lightning fence to the side of everyone crackled loudly and the letters changed.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION, STAND CLEAR…