Two days before door bust

Will had a tiny problem. A problem that he was just coming to terms with. He literally could only do a single point of damage with anything and everything a rock one point, a pointy stick one point, a punch one point, and a freaking sword yet again one point of measly damage. Over the past few days he realized he needed another body and one he could trust. Kena was out as she was his XP farm friend acquaintance. Acquaintances don’t go out to meet goblin tribes with words and good feelings. He needed a new follower. A captain of his rising workforce. His selection was less then optimal. The flunky seven were right out. They were cowards and backstabbers. Out of the other villagers the women were out they were organizing keeping the rest alive. The elders of the tribe were trying to scrounge the various ruined buildings. That left the children, teenagers and preteens. Some were curious about the things he was doing but most were being corralled by the more motherly women of the village and put to work.

Thankfully there were only a few that Will found out to be the orphans of the village where both parents had been part of the militia. Will felt bad for even thinking of those few he knew painful grief when he saw it. So gave them the space they needed. However there had been one that Will had seen filled with fierce determination when he had first arrived. It was the same one that had taken the piece of his grass sling and ran. Over the last few days, as Will scavenged the village for metal and any surviving leather pieces he heard odd sounds. A crack and a thwip and often the sound of stone hitting wood. Will would go looking but would either arrive to late or the wrong spot entirely. On the fifth day while out scavenging for the last needed scraps of leather he needed he heard the noises but this time they were close. Not having to eat had been a slight boon for him as he could get away from the gathering hall just after dawn. When Will heard the cracks he was determined to find their maker. He slowly sneaked his way up on his quarry and soon found a lone boy using a sling with surprising accuracy. Said sling was made with Will’s design out of long fibers instead of short grass. Will watched in delight as stone after stone hit what looked to be a crude rendition of a Imperium soldier. To Will this kid was perfect for his plans. All it would take was some careful coercion, charisma, wit, and… the kids gone. While Will was speculating the kid vanished. Will was baffled as far as Emilia had had told him you couldn’t earn a class until age eighteen which seemed like a scam to Will at first but it seemed instead they earn XP at a increased rate by completing tasks from a parent and both sides were rewarded. When Will heard this he immediately commended the god who came up with the way to both gamify childhood and parenting. When he noticed a presence behind him as if out of nowhere. Will spun and punched the figure doing a total of one damage. Will’s sense of clarity came back and found his fist had been caught. The kid had palmed his meek cursed fist. The kid no longer obscured in shadow was a lanky younger teenager except he was not human but that of a birdfolk in this particular case a ravenfolk. In a low tolerable nasal voice “You know it’s a tad rude to stare.” Cocking his head to the side. “But then you do a lot of that don’t you as you stare at your works.” Cocking his head back the other way his eyes squinting in suspicion “Why are you here?”

Time to put on that Dark Lord Charm. “I was simply curious to the cracks and sounds they were quite loud.” Will smiled. The ravenfolk child kept his suspicions cocking his head even farther “Then why cower behind rubble, why not come out and speak?”

He is way to scary and intelligent for not even being an adult. Truth or keep digging the hole. The hole is safe I like the hole but I neeeeed him. Truth will go a bit farther. “Fine, you got me. I need someone who’s not me to test my weapon.” “Why? Don’t know how? Some sort of Pacifist.”

You hit the nail on the coffin kid

“Because I can’t do anything with it. I am cursed to forever deal one damage. That punch I threw had everything in it you probably didn’t feel it.” “Caw, Caw, Caw…the scary Dark Lord everyone was afraid of can’t hurt a fly… Caw, Caw, Caw. That is too rich. Sure I’ll test your weapon but on a condition. The other kids and I all of our things got burned up. The only thing we can do after supper is chat which after a while gets real boring. You are from somewhere else, Yes. Surely your people have games or something to keep the boredom away.”

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Oh kid I would blow you mind with what we have

“Deal, I have several but I’ll start with cards as they have a whole host of games you can play with only a set of fifty two. I’ll have them ready by your supper along with a few other things for the younger kids.”

That’s hook line and sinker and maybe a way to get children to do my scavenging for me smaller bodies get into smaller spaces. Trade their time for toys from my world.

And so Will spent the next two days working on his gun while paying children for hard labor in paper and wooden toys. In all honesty he regretted teaching the kids a single gambling game. He would ante toys while they payed in time spent scavenging for him. Will to his credit was a terrible card player back on Earth and still was. He was swamped by toy debt for literal entire nights of work. Which leads us to door burst.

Will on his seventh night at the village was on a winning streak he had extracted hours of scavenging from his child labor force. Then his weapon tester ravenfolk had come over. Cluri, Will had learned the harsh way, took to cards as a bird to air. Within minutes Will not only lost all the labor but now owed his biggest creditor more toys. Will lost his shit and went to hide and sulk. A child had beaten him in a game that was only introduced two days ago and so thoroughly trounced him if Will had a table he would flip it. Will swore he’d have petty revenge on Cluri if it was the last thing he would do. Which is when Kena had found him sulking up on a rafter beam after climbing a rope of linen. She had evidently seen the entire thing and poked fun which only made Will deepen his cravings for petty revenge. But first he had a gun to test.

Will had been working on his gun since the night after meeting Emilia. Will didn’t have the luxury of gun-powder maybe later when he had more mana. However, he had a different source of energy for his gun. Pressurized Air. Will was a history buff and loved perusing lists of underutilized technology. One such technology was the air rifle. Particularly the one both the Austrian military as well as Lewis & Clark used on their grand expedition across a very early nineteenth century North America. The Giardoni Air Rifle. Not only had it saved the lives of the expedition from certain doom in a not so subtle intimidation of force through peaceful talks. It eventually led to the opening of the west. Unfortunately Will would be robbing this majestic peaceful image of the gun. Instead use the Austrian vision of it as a killing machine that could accurately kill a man at a range of a hundred yards. Unfortunately Will didn’t have a perfect image in his head of the firing mechanism so had to finagle it. He also made some more modern improvements to the real design by working some modern valves and future proof the design to be simpler for cleaning as he didn’t have the benefit of any sorts of high quality lubricants. The pump for the air cylinders was basically a bicycle pump that was a bit more robust and easier to use than the original.

Will hoped the air gun would prove useful in actually being able to talk to the goblins. He desperately needed more iron for the defenses of the village in the future and nothing was going to stand in the way of his XP and mana gain. The next morning after working on paying his debts off to the children he didn't have a petty vendetta against. He took Cluri to a small firing range for the test fire. Will quickly gave a quick rundown on the weapon and asked Cluri for any feedback on the design or if anything felt off. Cluri to Will’s exasperation at the boys ability to soaked up the information like a frikin sponge. Cluri was skeptical but Will put a contest up pitting sling and air rifle. He put up a thick cut of wood a hundred yards away and told Cluri to see if he could do significant damage to it. If he managed to make several of his sling rocks embed themselves he would get his toy debt not in installment but in lump sum first. But if he couldn’t and the air rifle did the debt was wiped clean. Cluri took to this bet with zealous ferocity. Unfortunately Will had stacked the deck just a little bit. For all of Cluri’s strength he did a decent job a few sling rock had actually done the job. Will congratulated Cluri on a job well done and to now use the rifle. With expected punch every shot of the 20 lead balls that were fired each sunk themselves several inches deep into the wood. Will had won, he was debt free from Cluri and had gotten revenge on the young ravenfolk. Will was petty and had zero tears to shed as he told Cluri better luck next time.

With a gun in hand a lethal set of hands Will had a way of intimidation for the goblins. But hoped it wouldn’t require lethal force to. Not because he would feel bad gods no it would be one less set of hands for him to exploit. Tomorrow, Will and Cluri were going on a delegation to see the goblins.