Teuila bids Tiago and Harriet return by waving them over. She paces around impatiently, twirling her spear absentmindedly. She’s wielding one of the less deadly, non magical spears that I obtained from the steelworks that we created near the Miracle Oak in Can’Z’aas. I was hoping to figure out how to enchant things at some point, and I figured I’d make a gift for Te once I learned how to do so. It was either this, or wooden sticks with fangs sap-glued onto their ends. I wasn’t going to summon copies of Gae Buidhe when I was dropping things out of my inventory at Daffodil’s place, and Teuila’s other magical spear is in her inventory, not mine.
Still, this absentminded display is how Teuila approaches keeping an eye out while up close, now that her bow is folded up along her back. I almost wonder if it would be better to have her take up a sniping position with her bow, somewhere out of sight, to make the threat a bit more unknown and unpredictable. I think that might add a slightly too-menacing air to the proceedings, since we’re trying to move back towards peaceful negotiation.
There’s a back and forth for several minutes, and it’s getting us exactly nowhere. Neither is willing to budge, and frankly, I’m with Harriet in this situation. Extortion is a fairly awful thing to do to someone. Teuila leans in to whisper several things to Tiago and Harriet, probably filling them in on my bluff, hopefully. I mean, it really isn’t a bluff. If it comes down to it, we can take off after Lil, and beg them to return with us to defend The Brook. If Dawn is even willing to stand around somewhere in view, that brings six of the seven that I mentioned. I wouldn’t hold my breath on finding Mataalii, let alone convincing him to help, but the threat of a seventh unknown member being nearby might frighten the Colossi further once they see what Teuila and Lil and Lucky can do. That’s if the Colossi call the bluff and Harriet wants us to just murder them, and slash or fight a war against the Colossi on behalf of Autumn Brook.
I wonder how much simpler life would have been if I had slaughtered all of the beavers instead of trying to make peace between the two factions. Or how much different life would be if I had razed Eimsas to the ground, destroying everything and everyone before Leviathan got the chance. Pretty gruesome thoughts to be honest. While there are generations worth of things to overcome between humans and critterkin, there are people like Jazharn and Bettie. Jaz’s love for Dreams of Days, the hyaenid member of the cat tribe that joined our family, is probably the single most noteworthy positive interaction between our two peoples. Not only is it the primary example of good relations, it’s wholesome and heartwarming to ridiculous levels. All in all, they’re cute together. Dream’s permanently grumpy face sneaking smiles in when Jaz is signing or drawing for her is a wonderful sight.
I’m not saying I expect Meredith or Clint or Dodge to fall in love with some human in town, to create some sort of bridge across the divide between the Aasimovians and the Colossi. That’s just kind of silly. Especially since it’s fairly obvious that there’s another power at play. Meredith said something about having to appease their lords to be able to retain their strength and safety. Some corrupt entity isn’t going to back down from extortion when a couple of people profess their love for one another across a divide like this.
I manage to hear Harriet throwing me under the bus, “Look, there is no wealth left in the town save in the pockets of these mercenaries we’ve hired. Maybe you’d like to try extorting them for a few weeks?”
I barely refrain from rolling my eyes. Alright, so I’m pulling about a tenth of a percent, maybe a hundredth, possibly only a thousandth of a percent of my wealth out of my inventory, in the form of thin gold bars. When I summoned stuff at Daffodil’s, I only imagined a couple of handfuls or pocketfulls. Hopefully fractions of a percent is at least a noticeable pile that can be used in place of the town’s extortion rate while we figure things out.
Yee gods holy smokes in a rowboat! Ow. Okay, so, yes, it’s definitely a noticeable pile. Everyone on our side of negotiations leaps back as the gold materializes out of nowhere. It’s a pile at least the size of me, and has buried me after it fell over. It fell, of course, because I didn’t exactly picture how to pile it as it came out of my inventory. It’s not like I could view how much there was or the shape a pile might form in or the space it might take up.
Teuila drags my coughing, sputtering form out from beneath the gold, and her face is fighting so hard to keep from smiling. I can tell she’s barely holding in laughter, and I honestly want to laugh with her. I work to dust myself off, and carefully sling the staff into a leather thong across my back, shrunken down. I could probably untie this and use it as a slingshot, but I have a magical crossbow, why would I do that? Speaking of the crossbow, I make certain that its barrels are aimed to the ground as I reorient myself towards the Colossi.
Meredith exclaims, “I thought you said there was no wealth left in the town? This is seasons of wealth!”
Rolling my eyes, I step around the gold pile, and motion to myself, “I’m the one that conjured this gold you numpty. What do you think I’ve been doing while sitting silent for the last ten minutes? Also, obviously, I’m not just handing this over to you. We’ll escort this to your bosses or lords or whatever nonsense. When there, we can talk about the future of wealth generation and sharing between The Brook and The Colossi.”
I really did conjure far, far too much. There’s got to be nearly a hundred thousand of those little bars. Crapsack and a half jack. I wish I could check my inventory, but I know I was explicitly trying to pull a fraction of a percent of the wealth out, and this is what came. It just goes to show you how fruitful hunting dungeon spawns can be I guess. I didn’t even hunt anywhere near as much as Teuila or Linti. I can’t imagine how much they’ve got sitting in their inventories at the moment. Awe heck, I’m going to make myself sad thinking of our Lightning Hunter. Come on Reggie, back to the present, focus.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Meredith rubs the back of her cranium and hesitantly claims, “I’m not so certain that would be a good idea. Like I said, we’re the weakest, it’s why we’re sent out as little more than mules to collect.”
I heave a sigh and rub the bridge of my nose, trying to reserve my patience. Meredith is trying to be rational, perhaps even reasonable. Not necessarily moral or ethical, but she’s making an effort. Meredith, Dodge, and Clint are stuck at the bottom of a bad situation, and, as giant Colossi, letting their situation get to them proves dangerous to everyone around. Harriet’s voice has been decrepit this entire time. I feel like a jerk for letting her speak or making her speak. I suppose she would have let Tiago speak for the town if she wasn’t up to the task though. Hopefully.
I motion to Teuila who stands one foot atop the gold pile, leaning on that upraised knee. Te calmly states, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist.” She bears some minor resemblance to a pirate captain or some other nautical figure in that pose.
I can’t hide the smile that’s creeping across my face, so I turn my back to the Colossi as I grin derpily at Teuila. I still need a nap. We’d barely passed out when all this started, and before that Teuila and I had spent days speeding through the wilderness to get to the town in time. It’s a good thing that we did too, since the Colossi showed up a day or two early.
Us having gotten to the situation in time doesn’t help with the fact that I’m plum knackered though. Lords and ladies, hells and bells, this truly reminds me of the tunnel complex situation. I’m going to be pushing through without sleep, for probably days on end. I’m almost certain at this point that we’re going to end up murdering someone in charge of the Colossi. If Rayileklia and Can’Z’aas were some sort of in-phase out-of-phase world combo, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Colossi plains lined up with the Beaver Dam tunnel complex. It would make me four for four if things turn out the way I bet they will. I really, truly hope the leader is just under the curse of some easily breakable object or something, or somehow can be reasoned with. That would let us avoid murdering the leader or leaders.
Huff. I find myself heaving a sigh since I know it’s not likely we’ll avoid a combat at the end of this situation.
Over my my shoulder, looking back towards them, I call out to Meredith and the others, “I feel a bit like a heel for treating you the same as your leader, but is there any chance you’d be willing to carry this mound of gold? It would be a bit hard to fit in our pockets.”
Harriet eyes the gold, the slightest bit of greed in her eyes. She shakes her head rapidly, dispelling the thoughts that had risen up. Tiago actually picks up a long twig and pokes the gold with it. I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish, and I barely restrain my laughter. Maybe he thought I’d casted an illusion rather than summoning the gold? That would have been a hell of a way to blow our bluff if it had been one Tiago.
Meredith sighs and my danger wraps read her movements as she shrugs. She bends over to inspect the pile of gold. Meredith tries to scoop all the money into one hand, and finds it difficult threefold. One, her broken fingertip keeps her from fully utilizing her right hand, and two, there’s too much to fit in a single fist of hers, or realistically even in both fists. Thirdly, her left arm is cooked extra-crispy from my lightning-bolt.
I do note one oddity however. When Meredith scoops towards the ground, it’s as if the soil and stone spread away from her fingers, letting her grip move lower. Her fingers seem to be drawing grooves in the ground without exerting any intentional force to do so. I try to observe the phenomenon as closely as I can. Sure enough, as soon as Meredith’s extremities come in contact with ground at any level, the ground accommodates her by moving lower or spreading aside. Fascinating, I wonder how much control she has over it. She isn’t sinking into the earth, err, the Rayileklia? The soil. Since she isn’t sinking, there’s at least some degree of control keeping the soil from constantly moving away from all of her. Meredith beckons Dodge over to finish scooping the gold. Dodge and Clint produce the same phenomenon.
No wonder it was mentioned that they made a literal gulf between the city and their plains. It would be easy as pie to scoop hundreds of miles of a channel with a few Colossi just walking in one direction dragging their hands. Ugh, where were you guys when I was digging the moat and canal for the Miracle Oak? Stupid Colossi not existing yet. Or something. I try not to laugh at my internal monologue, as I’m still attempting to take this situation somewhat seriously. Or I’m at least attempting to appear like I’m taking it seriously.
Trying to devise a strategy to request peace and the ceasing of hostilities from an unknown leader, a possibly corrupted entity? It’s difficult to say the least. I default to threat of violence, something I’m a bit ashamed of, but it has worked out fairly well so far. I don’t have a lot of other skills. Hand me a battle map and I could direct you to efficient troop placement, offer guerrilla strategies and navigate impossible terrain. Give me some esoteric problem, and list off a random host of magical skills, and I could maybe conjure up some previously undiscovered application of a combination of those skills.
I could actually improve economics across regions if I were some sort of minister of trade, even without having ridiculously insane levels of wealth hidden magically away. Also without abusing the ability to sell to and buy from magical shops that produce certain goods endlessly. Mostly since I’m used to almost passively examining numerical efficiency on a dozen things simultaneously. I’m actually feeling kind of weird not having an internal mental subroutine dedicated to crafting and inventory manipulation anymore. It’s, it’s very disconcerting losing a large chunk of what I dedicated a portion of my brain to. At least the internal electrokinesis subroutine is still running. It’s weird, since that’s a magic or spell-type that I picked up much later, and is far less of a natural part of me. Though I guess electrical currents are a natural part of me more than weird digital space magic is.
Tell me to talk to someone and convince them to do the opposite of what they’re doing? You might as well ask me to convince a brick wall to move, or a god to not… do god things. Yeah, that one got away from me there. Honestly, I sort of kind of did both of those things too anyway. I mean, moving walls is something my inventory magic used to be able to do with barely a thought. Since I barely had to interact with the process, I could have it look like a wall got up and walked away. Convincing gods to not do their thing wasn’t entirely successful, but it also didn’t backfire. It bought us time.
Regardless, in thinkspace there’s ways I could come up with winning strategies for many obstacles that I had any foreknowledge of with a list of available assets. I have no foreknowledge going into this situation, and no more accelerated thinkspace, and I can’t even list out the assets available in my own inventory, let alone anyone else’s skills or items.