24 Astra 10,391
The previous night had culminated with him doing a watch and patrol before smoking some of the doo-doo weed and becoming nicely stoned. With the mental compulsion satisfied he sat and stared at the stars while feeding his raccoon some bread and meat. Despite the weed his dreams were vivid and wild, something he wasn’t used to, usually he didn’t dream anything, or at least forgot it immediately.
The morning brought more boars. Six woke to shouts of alarm and immediately crawled his stinky ass out of his sleeping roll and took stock immediately. It was worse, he could see that. The boars had charged deep into the camp and the only part not completely fucked was the small group of soldiers who had isolated themselves in a defensive circle, they were letting settlers behind their tiny circle but it was quickly growing and as it grew the soldiers became more and more spread out. A few of them were spellcasters and Six could see their damage rain down on the boars. Denny was close by with his blood covered longsword and Koda at his side, her muzzle covered in blood. “Get fighting Six, this is gonna be everyday fer yah.”
The glaive came out of storage and with a quick stretch Six ran out and began laying about him. These boars were tougher, more feral and wild, larger. Their hide was harder to pierce and their tusks seemed more jagged and cruel. Six lashed out and with viscous overhead swings he slayed. There was no technique to the wild slashes and stabs but the animals fell anyway. He found a rhythm and fought hard, pushing himself to the limits of his improved endurance regen, moving forward and trying to create space for the settlers to fall back towards the soldiers.
A boar came forward and the combination of its hide and a poorly aimed swing allowed it to come too close to Six. He tried to back away but the beast threw its tusks about and slammed into Six, sending him flying. The pain was intense but Six quickly scrambled to his feet and set his polearm as the boar came running in for the double tap. Instead, it ran right into the set glaive and impaled itself quite deep, instantly dying. Six tried to withdraw the glaive but it was stuck in the flesh of the creature and would not come loose, he let it go and instead another spear appeared in his hand.
Six looked for his next target and saw the young Muldstanni boy running up to him and looking at him with questioning eyes. “Get behind the circle!” Six yelled.
The boy shook his head and pointed to Six’s leg. “You’re hurt, let me help.”
Six looked down to his head and saw a large gash running down his thigh, it was bleeding profusely. Shit. He checked his combat logs and grimaced.
You have been stabbed with a tusk for 20 damage
You have been afflicted with the condition bleeding1.
You are bleeding, you lose 15 health.
As he internalized the words another log came.
You are bleeding, you lose 15 health.
Shit, shit, shit. His Earthen Endurance roughly 15 health a minute, it could not keep up with his hemorrhage. His mind went to blood stoppers and occupational first aid. He thought of the israeli bandage that he kept on his climbing saddle. He didn’t have that, what he did have was…
With an effort of thought he focused his will on his Ring of Quickened Healing and felt warmth blossom deep in his leg, he felt a stab of sharp pain and a presence of throbbing discomfort where the tusk had struck but the bleeding debuff was gone. He wasn’t about to just let his HP just flow freely, that was his vital juice!
He nodded in thanks at the boy and walked towards the fight, the sound from behind Six let him know that the young man followed. Shit, Six wasn’t his father, he wasn’t responsible for the kid, who was he to turn the kid away? “Stay close, I guess, I’m not that experienced at this.”
“I can see that,” the Muldstanii spoke in a more refined way than anyone, even Alice sounded a bit more rustic. Now that he looked at the kid he saw that the worn and torn clothes were once finely tailored.
Six laughed and pointed at the closest enemy. “What’s your name kid.”
“Charles.”
“Charles?”
“Yes.”
Six detected a sliver of anger in that reply. “Aight Charles, I’m Six. I’ll attack first and draw their attention, if I go down you be careful and help me up, just like you did before. I don’t know your level or HP but don’t die.”
Charles nodded.
They worked together to dispatch boars, Six stabbing about wildly and taking hits, Charles finishing kills and preventing Six from being overwhelmed. It worked well enough, until the battle changed.
A deep roaring bellow echoed out from the surrounding forest and the familiar cracking and low whine of falling trees. A boar the size of a cube van burst from the surrounding foliage and snorted, its hide, thick and glittering, almost crystalline, it looked studded with diamonds. Six knew he couldn’t take it and his head swiveled for Denny, instead he saw the soldiers break formation and move against the creature.
Two muscle bound warriors sprinted forward directly at the beast. A massive bald, black skinned human man, and fully armored humanoid, the former in armor similar to Six’s while the latter wore black full plate with a helm stylized to look like a dragon. The first wielded a sword and shield and the second a glaive, but unlike Six and Charles they knew how to use them and how to work with each other properly.
Gatbark moved forward on his pet boar. Where was the raccoon? Gatbark yelled out a spell, “Divine Shield!” and a dark stony aura fell upon both warriors. The Muldstanii priest screamed his spell, “Chains of Kynairos!” and greenish copper chains burst from the ground to restrain the monster but Six could tell it was barely contained. A frilled Vrill added to the encounter with a buff, “Flame Enhance!”, the sword and glaive burst into flames as the warriors delivered blows that penetrated but barely wounded the giant thing. It snorted contemptuously and shook like a wet dog casting the chains aside and tusking the glaive wielder in the air.
Six tore his eyes from the scene, he needed to be doing something! Charles was also caught distracted by the display and Six shook him to the present. He quickly scanned and saw that now that the soldiers had broken ranks the boars were plowing into the settlers who were defending as best they could, Six gestured for Charles to fall back with him and help the inner defenses.
They tried their best to reform but Six could see a boar about to gore and stomp on the weakest, children and elders.
“Stone Spear,” he uttered and swiftly ran the mana through the magical functions implanted in his mind and performed the gestures necessary, then a needle sharp stab of pain erupted in his head.
Stone Spear Miscast has dealt 16 psychic damage.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
A miscast? What the fuck!? Of course there was miscasting! Nothing happened except the consumption of mana and the fizzling of arcane on his finger tips. The children and elders screamed as the boar rampaged amongst them before the more martial settlers fought it. That took 32 mana. 32 mana for a splitting stab in his head. The boars seemed endless, and Six was still too far away so he beared through the pain and carefully cast another spell, this time slowing down the action and aiming in front of a charging group of enemies.
“Stone Wall.” A wall of stone shot up from the ground just before the boars impacted. It was thick and the height of the average boar, Six had made it that way to make the wall thicker and it stopped the boars perfectly. The boars at the front ran straight into it and were crushed and gored by those beasts behind them. One tried to scrabble over the wall but another “Stone Spear,” from Six pierced its skull and depleted his mana. He felt as if he could use Blood Casting but a glance at the glaring priest dissuaded him of that notion. Him and Charles were close enough to take position in the defensive ring. Alice stood by them and she called for martial settlers to join them.
Slowly they stabilized the line and fighting side by side, killed boars with abandon, but the massive crystal boar still rampaged.
They worked together, trading positions and chipping away at the glittering beast.
The massive ebony soldier dropped his longsword and smashed his shield across the things snout and staggered it for a second, allowing the greenish chains to reassert themselves. The man dropped his shield roaring, “Unleashed Muscle!” his muscles growing significantly in size before the man wrapped the boar in a headlock, dropping his body and forcing the creature down. The person in the dark dragon armor rushed forward with a blindingly fast combination, his “Dragon Lance Advance!” culminated with him stabbing his weapon in the middle of the beast's skull and holding it steady as a tiny person, halfling or gnome probably, performed a spinning front flip and roundhoused his hammer onto the iron shod end of the glaive, something activated and a thunderous concussive blast drove the glaive home.
"Oooh, triple tech," Six said, impressed.
The creature keened and with a shiver, slumped to the ground. Its body distended and ballooned.
The massive muscle bound man bellowed, "take cover!"
Six barely had enough mana for another stone wall and he placed it to cover as many people as he could from the bulging corpse and then pulled the kid to the ground. Hiding behind the wall as crystal shards exploded from the corpse and stabbed out in all directions.
His stone wall helped but was shattered in many places by the flying crystals, crumbling but stopping the shards from doing any damage, his wall could only cover so many people and many settlers moaned and groaned from their wounds, many lay silent. his mana had been depleted and his head pounded, the mana deprivation trope seemed to be present.
When the boss boar died the rest of the normal boars quickly scattered having lost the driving force of their horde, the people recovered and began reorganizing the scattered camp.
Six let out a tired breath before going to retrieve his glaive. It was hard to pull from the boar but came free with a slurping suction sound. Swapping it out for a dagger he began to dig for those sweet sweet mana cores.
Denny came over and nodded in affirmation. “No wasting time, good. You injured?”
Six waved the question away just some bumps and bruises and although he didn’t get anything else from the Ley Core, he did get the passive health regen, small though it may be, he would be fine. “I’ll be ok. Speaking of injuries though, is there a way to regrow limbs?”
Denny and Charles both made a funny face at that.
“What, I'm a bumpkin, my village was pretty isolated.”
Charles shook his head. “No, not unless you have a technique or spell that would enable that level of healing, a bloodline or evolution might provide an ability that could do it..”
Denny scratched his grizzled stubble in thought. “I've heard of some evolutions that would provide the ability to do so as well. You’re far from that and it's not guaranteed that you would receive that type of evolution though so be careful.”
From what Six could tell people healed about the same as his previous world with an average endurance of ten. Six wasn’t too good with math but estimated that he would heal to full in 16 minutes or so. With no increase to his endurance his innate health regen was a normal person’s and increasing it seemed to improve the rate but not nearly as significantly as the Ley Core. “Evolution?”
Denny chuckled, “your village elders hadn’t evolved? Where do you come from boy? Ah, no matter, Evolutions are-”
But he was interrupted by one of the approaching soldiers, the priest. Rough brown robes and a red sash with what looked like some military rank insignia was what they wore, their dark green skin and tusks told Six they were Muldstanii. “Praise be Kynairos. Who are you?” The man stated the question with the confidence of a person who expected obedience.
“My name is Six… Praise be Kynairos. You?”
“Six? Well Six, I am Craftsman Irduth, I demand to see your Imperial mage’s guild license.”
“Really? Shit. I don’t have one.”
“Then I must ask you to come with me, I am hereby conscripting you into the Imperial Military.”
Six was dumbfounded, he blinked his eyes and looked between Charles and Denny who looked uncomfortable and amused respectively. “I am not an Imperial,” he explained.
“You are human and in the Imperial lands.”
“Well, nah, I came from west of here.”
Irduth scoffed. “I do not believe you, do not seek to shirk your responsibility to the empire.”
“Nah man, not me. If it wasn’t for Alison I wouldn’t be anywhere around here. I’m just helping these people and then fucking off to do my thing.”
“Still, most spells are too dangerous to leave untethered. I am invoking my right as a priest of the church and officer of the Empire, given to me by the Advent line and Kynairos most high, you are conscripted.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Six shouted this, he needed attention. “You broke the defensive ring and left people undefended, what was I supposed to do? Let them die? I had to use everything I could to help. Or should I have let these people just get stomped to death?”
“Irrelevant.” The priest said and grabbed Six by his shirt in an attempt to pull him towards the soldiers. Instead Six slapped the hand away but a word from Irduth showed him he had much to learn.
“Rebuke.” The word of power left Irduth as Six slapped the hand away and it activated a spell of some kind. Greenish flames leapt up and connected the two men. They bathed Six and he burned. The pain was brief but intense.
You have been burned with a Rebuke of Kynairos for 86 damage
Six screamed in pain as the flames burned and quickly guttered but the damage was done, his skin blistered and missing in small spots, those would scar. “What the fuck! What the fuck dude! Asshole!”
Instantly Denny had come forward and had his blade at the priest’s neck. His easy going attitude missing, instead the old man was cold iron. “Get yer fuckin hands off my ward.”
“Threaten me!? I am a priest of the great Kynairos! Kynairos be praised!”
“Ow,” Six moaned as his skin cracked and leaked pus, he took out a piece of rootbust and began to chew.
“I don’t care, I have a job and you ain't taking my student until I’m done with him.” Denny growled and moved the blade, drawing a tiny drop of blood.
“Heathen.” Irduth nearly spit it. “Kill me and my comrades will destroy all these traitors.”
“Woah woah woah!” Alison’s voice broke into the conflict. “What's going on?”
“My face!” Six groaned. “My… everything.”
“This mage is using spells without a license.” Irduth said smugly. “I am conscripting him.”
“No.” Denny and Alison said at the same time.
“Or what? You civilians have no authority here.”
Alison spoke calmly “We have left the empire. You have no authority here, we need this man and his guide. I was assured you would not impose your beliefs on these people.”
“My beliefs have nothing to do with the law.”
“Deathspire was never conquered by the empire. There is no Imperial law here.”
“A mere formality as it is encapsulated by the Kingdom of Harmony and the Kingdom of Arkion. It is part of the empire as it is contained by the empire.” Irduth tried to pull Six and his neck away from Denny but the Ranger’s sword dissuaded the Muldstanii from the act. “We must consolidate imperial resources and he is now one.”
“No I’m not,” said Six.
“No he's not,” said Charles.
Irduth raised his eyebrow at the young Muldstanii and went to speak again but the ebony muscle bound fighter came up and laid a calming hand on the priest's shoulder. He leaned in and whispered something in Irduth’s ear and slowly shook his bald head, no.
“Nonsense,” Irduth said and went to pull on Six again but Six leaned away.
“Eh, fuck you buddy, don’t fucking touch me.”
“Yea!” A kobold said, “You all left us to die! Didn’t see you trying to help us. You leave him alone. Leave all of us alone!” The inspiring little creature started a chant. “Leave us alone! Leave us alone!”
The massive man’s deep voice rolled like a calming wave. “Sorry little one but our strength was required to end the greater threat. In pursuit of victory we could not maintain our defensive circle and for that I apologize.” He looked at Six and gave a manly nod of respect. “Thank you for standing in defense of these people.”
Irduth pursed his lips and snarled, He conjured a lash of magic and went to unleash it but was stopped by almost all the soldiers who had now gathered behind the muscle man. Irduth narrowed his eyes at Six and uttered words just loud enough for Six, “I will remember this.” Then he shouted. “Yes, yes, praise be Kynairos!” and allowed himself to be removed by his companions.
Denny had that “I told you so” grin and Alison looked worried.
Six huffed. “Who the hell did you bring along Alison? You didn’t tell me about this shit. I thought you were trying to get away from this shit.” Six tried not to move very much as his tender skin ached from the immolation. His clothes were burned in spots but the armor seemed to have weather it fine.
“Sorry, but Orifec brought them along with that Gatbark fellow, I had not thought that priest would have done such a thing. We had discussed it and Keegan had assured me. If Carralevine and the others were here they could control them but I can’t stop them from latching on to our exodus, they won’t tell me why they are coming either. Keegan seems to keep them pretty well handled though.”
Six looked at the soldier’s huddle and saw the priest getting dressed down by the group but it didn’t make him feel any better. “Shit, I don’t want to be around that asshole, can we go Denny?”
The old man chuckled and nodded. “What did we learn?”
“Shut up.”