068 – Unclean

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A fire burned in the magic circle before me. Thick smoke rose from the flames, and every time the wind shifted, it blew right in my face, forcing me to scoot around the edge of the hastily created array. I sat atop a high rock overlooking the river and our two flat bottomed skiffs.

We had been on the Spitpoison for eleven nights as it wound through thick forests, grassy hills, lightly wooded swamps, and areas strewn with boulders and rocky outcrops. In that time I had accumulated too many bundles of spiritual herbs for transport. So I burned off all the extras beyond a minimal set of samples. The plants were still green, so they let off roiling clouds of smoke and steam.

“What are you doing up here, disciple?” A deep voice asked. Famigrist climbed up the steep slope with ease.

“Burning some weeds.” I waved my notebook in front of my face to ward off the smoke. My book recorded illustrations of the herbs, a preliminary guess as to their lunar essences, and their almost unpronounceable names in the goblin tongue so that, in the future, I could send the monsters to the valley to gather them on my behalf.

“Your smoke is visible for leagues around. The smell goes further still. What’s the purpose of this?”

“I’ve collected too many samples. They’ll rot before we get home. So I’m extracting their essences and transferring them to these rune-stones.” I held up a string of beads of blood red crystal. These beads, each the size of a peach pit, had formerly been the golem’s set of horns. I shaped the leftover chunks into spheres and inscribed them with runes for sealing in lunar essences.

“Essence?”

“Uh… Think of it like squeezing the juice from a fruit. I collect the juice in a bottle and discard the pulp.”

“You’re a plant necromancer. Stealing the souls of fruit and leaves.” He sniffed the burning weeds.

“That’s one way to put it,” I said. “But it’s not just plants. Essences can be found in many things across the continent. Including the parts of monsters.”

Famigrist snarled and bared his fangs. I probably shouldn’t have brought that up. He growled, “This is deep lore for a mere disciple. Who taught you these secrets?”

“Nobody. They aren’t really secrets. Anyone could figure it out with some work. You could say I learned directly from the universe.” While that was true of science and its ethos of strict empiricism, it was a lie for me personally. I had inherited the discoveries of countless previous generations from my schooling in the metropolis. But I couldn’t explain that to the monster without revealing my ghostly origin. “I mean, no matter what it is, someone had to discover it in the first place, right?”

“No. Divine knowledge came directly from the Lunar Gods.”

“Oh right. I forgot about them. Well, maybe by doing it myself, I can discover some secrets that even the gods don’t know about.”

I waved my staff over the array. Its twinkling rune-stones rose up and dropped one by one into my satchel. A gust of wind blew away the burning ashes, leaving behind the blasphemous scar of a pentagram etched into the stone.

Modern people did not see things from my perspective. To them, the world was in state of constant decline. Humanity reached its absolute height in the Ancient Era. Then the gods cursed us for our hubris and unleashed titans from the bowels of the Earth. Things went steadily down hill ever since. Demigods produced immortals who birthed heroes who spawned common men. Every generation was worse than the last, physically, intellectually, and morally. The future promised nothing but decay and dissolution. Thus, the only real knowledge could be from time worn dogmas or antique texts, never original thought.

I had the opposite view. Mankind started out as a bunch of dirty cavemen and slowly became civilized. The essence of life was growth, progress, and improvement. No matter how much we learned, more knowledge waited to be discovered. No matter how big the set back, we could recover through hard work. Scientific knowledge couldn’t be permanently lost, because as long as humans had a spark of curiosity in their souls, we could gain it all back in time.

Famigrist shied away from me, as if expecting some bolt from the sky to strike me dead. “You utter unholy words, disciple. The gods may smite you for your wizardry.”

“They can try.”

The sun was setting, and the western mountains cast long shadows into valley. It was time to pack up the camp and raise anchor. The trolls stirred to wakefulness. One of the goblins carrying a copper pot began to bang on it like a gong. The little monster ran screaming for the shore, sending everyone into a panic.

“An attack!” Famigrist growled. He bounded down the steep pile rocks toward the ruckus.

We had made camp on a beach beneath a cluster of stone outcroppings. Any monsters had only one narrow path through the rocks by which they could reach us. I hopped down the and sprinted in that direction, assuming it to be the source of the alarm, although I had yet to see anything.

Famigrist shouted at the trolls and yanked those still sleeping out of their tents. He ordered them to grab their weapons, long spears and axes. The trolls carried large wooden shields with metal bosses at their center. The Warcreeps clumsily assembled into a fighting formation.

I was the first to reach the approaching monster. At first I thought a buffalo had wandered into the narrow defile, since it matched that size and general shape, but then I saw it to be an unbelievably huge pig. A great hairy boar with massive tusks galloped towards me. Its clomping hooves kicked up loose stones as it galloped at full tilt.

My Quick Thinking technique was still in its earliest stages, but I didn’t need much extra brain power to choose the ideal tactic here: get out of the way. It was like standing on a train track before a chugging locomotive. The narrow space gave me no room to sidestep the onrushing beast. It lowered its head, ready to employ its saber like tusks.

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My flame grew to the utmost heat, and I sprinted forward to meet the beast. Planting the end of my staff solidly in the ground, I used it like a pole vaulter and launched myself over the boar’s head and back. The monster shot under me as I twisted around in the air. It continued its wild charge straight to the camp, because it could not easily turn around for another attack.

I landed on the other side and rolled to my feet. This pig was trouble. Wild boars were dangerous animals that could fly into a killer rage, and I doubted their monstrous counterparts had friendlier dispositions. This one could stomp our whole raiding party into paste. I whipped out my dress sword. Its blade looked pathetically delicate for an opponent of this size.

Famigrist shouted commands. The trolls spoke their own tongue, but the Goadsmen had taught them a set of simple commands. They now understand orders for marching, holding the line, forming squares, presenting arms, and other infantry maneuvers. Furthermore, they had picked up a smattering of human words for objects, like food and fire and tent. This limited vocabulary didn’t allow for fluent communication. Famigrist couldn’t give them nuanced orders for the battle, so he had the soldiers ready their spears and brace for impact.

The saber-tusked boar slammed into the first troll it saw, ramming it up against the side of the rocks. The troll’s spear snapped in half against the beast’s hide. Disarmed and pinned against a wall, the poor Warcreep could do nothing as the pig gored it with a giant tusk.

The minions wisely fled to the boats, assuming the river to be the safest place from a land monster. The Warcreeps moved around the the giant boar, stabbing at its flanks with their spears. They drew blood, but hardly scratched its tough hide. At this rate, they’d get wiped out by the rampaging beast.

The transformation of the tribe of troll raiders into Warcreeps was astounding. They started as wild, hooting savages that could barely be controlled, and they ended up as trained soldiers who could barely think for themselves. They had been filled with burning rage, now they were utterly hollow. For marching around the citadel or digging trenches or rowing boats, the change had been a good one, but in a battle, it robbed them of effectiveness. They poked spears at the boar with no ferocity and raised their shields with little instinct of self preservation.

Famigrist leaped onto the boar’s back and wrapped his arms around its neck. Obviously it was up to him and me to win this fight. He bit into the back of its neck, but the monster’s thick fur and tough muscles protected that area. It went squealing down the beach.

I plucked a spear from the hands of a bewildered troll. A spear was better suited than my sword for piercing the beast’s hide. The monster reached the end of the beach and wheeled about for another pass. It had failed to loosen Famigrist from its back. I set the butt end of the spear into the ground, so that the running boar would impale itself. The force of its charge would drive the point of the spear deep into its body.

The boar, perhaps not as stupid as I assumed, skidded to a stop. As it halted the charge, it arched its back and sent Famigrist flying at me like a stone loosed from a sling. I had to move the spear aside so as not to skewer my ally. He landed with a thud and burst of sand. We now faced the awful pig head on.

The monster inhaled sharply, and then opened its ugly mouth wide. It belched out a cloud of dark vapor like a blast from a fire extinguisher. Whatever stuff it sprayed at us could not be good, so I leaped straight into the water. I had gone swimming in the Spitpoison before, and it wasn’t that bad compared to actually getting poison spit in my face. Famigrist got to his feet too late and disappeared within the cloud.

During the alchemy duel between Iiyluzh and Fownst, the old alchemist threw a handful of powdered antidote into the air. Then, when it fell upon Iiyluzh, he projected his fire through the cloud to fully activate the substance’s power. The boar had its own version of that trick. It belched up a vapor of bile and then projected its magic power into it. The dark mist ignited into a greenish fire. I observed the burning wave from underwater.

When I came to the surface, Famigrist was shrouded in flames, green fire from the layer of pig bile mixed with orange from his burning fur. I moved to the shore and shed my waterlogged cloak and satchel. “Jump in the river!” I shouted. “Get in the water!”

Famigrist stumbled toward the water, unable to see clearly while covered in foul, burning slime. Green flames spread over a large patch of the beach. Blood flowed down the giant boar’s neck from bite wounds and claw marks.

Projection techniques came in three types. Extension pushed fire from oneself to a weapon, object, other person, or to form a free tendril of soul fire. Radiation spread outward in all directions like heat and was less suited for direct attacks. And emission broke off a piece of one’s flame and sent it flying toward an enemy. Emission, the method for ranged attacks, was the hardest to master, however Fightmaster Putrizio’s compendium described a few techniques that used clever shortcuts. I lifted my spear and extended my flame down the haft to the sharp metal point.

The saber-tusked boar snorted and puffed up its chest defiantly. It opened its mouth and prepared to send out a second wave of flaming bile. The moment it opened its mouth, I hurled the spear with all my might. By throwing a weapon encased in soul fire, a swordsman could do a cheap imitation of a real emission technique. It was far easier to emit a free shred of flame when it was already attached to an object. The thrown projectile retained some of its preternatural strength and sharpness.

The boar choked on my spear before letting out its second belch. It shook its head back and forth trying to dislodge the toothpick from its throat. The problem with throwing one's weapon away had the obvious tactical flaw that it left one disarmed. I drew my sword. Its blade was bound to snap or bend striking this huge beast.

The boar charged forward, parting the green flames like a curtain. It gnashed its jaws and shattered the spear’s wooden haft in its mouth. My hit had enraged it even further. All of my training had been against human opponents, so I had no experience fighting with animals or monsters. The best I could think to do was poke at the sensitive snout and eyes.

As I slashed at the monster, it forced me to jump out of the way of its fearsome tusks. Just before it drove me back to the rocks, Famigrist barreled into the side of the pig and knocked it clean off its hooves. The two monsters rolled across the sand in a vicious wrestling match.

There was no simple way to defeat the boar. It was too big. I couldn’t out-muscle it. I couldn’t out-maneuver it on the narrow strip of beach between the rocks and the water. The only way to victory was through sheer magic power.

Famigrist rolled the boar onto its side, exposing its neck and belly. I had to move quickly while he had it restrained. With a quick judgment of where to strike, I stabbed my blade like a needle into the monster’s belly and held it in place. I closed my eyes. Soul fire coursed through the spiritual steel and branched outward like arcing electricity.

To beat the monster, I skipped inflicting physical damage and probed out its bile sac. My flames touched the sticky substance. The pig had produced this flammable stuff through some internal alchemy, but I was the one to ignite it. The bile caught fire internally. My sword slid out of the incision mark followed by a long jet of green flame.

Famigrist held the squealing monster to the ground as it was cooked alive from the inside. In a few moments, it collapsed and exhaled a final puff of smoke.

“It’s dead,” I said.

Our side’s monster didn’t look much better. The flames had burnt off large patches of Famigrist’s fur. What remained was drenched in water and rolled through the sand. It was hard to sense his emotions, because of his inhuman face and growling voice, but I guessed he was not in a good mood.

“Tell the minions to delay embarking until we’ve carved up this hog.” He lumbered away from the smoking carcass. “I’m going to bathe in the river.”

“Right away.”

The battle was over. The goblins poked their heads out of their hiding places, and the trolls came to drag away the dead boar monster.